UK court freezes Azerbaijani lawmaker's £39m properties
U.K. authorities have frozen 22 London properties that the Azerbaijani lawmaker Javanshir Feyziyev and his wife are suspected to have bought with “the proceeds of unlawful conduct,” a high court heard on Thursday.
The properties, which were bought for more than £39.5 million (US$50 million), were frozen following an order from a High Court in June 2023, according to title deeds obtained by OCCRP.
Feyziyev did not respond to requests to comment in time for publication, but the family’s lawyer sought to annul the freezing orders at the hearing on Thursday before judge Nigel Poole, arguing that the NCA had not followed due process and that there was “not a good arguable case that any of the property was obtained through unlawful conduct.”
The politician’s family has previously come under scrutiny from the U.K.’s National Crime Agency (NCA) for holding millions of pounds in bank accounts that the Agency said had come from an international money laundering scheme, uncovered by OCCRP in 2017, known as the “Azerbaijani Laundromat.”
In 2022, the U.K. seized £5.6 million ($7.56 million) of those funds from accounts belonging to Feyziyev’s wife, eldest son Orkhan, and nephew Elman Javanshir.
The more recent freezing orders on properties bought by Feyziyev and his wife, which prevent them from selling or transferring the assets, were requested because of “strong evidence” they were obtained through money laundering, according to the NCA.
In a document filed to the court, the Agency described “money flows of extraordinary complexity” that appeared to be accompanied by “inconsistent, false or fictitious descriptions,” and could be traced back to companies that had been found to be involved in money laundering.
The priciest properties among those frozen — two residences purchased for over £26 million ($33.4 million) in the exclusive Chelsea Barracks complex — were bought by Feyziyev in 2020 while British authorities were still investigating his wife, son and nephew in relation to the money laundering case.
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