A businessman is charged with laundering Azerbaijan funds through Luxembourg Bank.

Jahangir Hajiyev,

• The wife of Jahangir Hajiyev, the jailed former chairman of the International Bank of Azerbaijan, agreed to forfeit a luxury London townhouse and a U.K. golf club in August after a landmark case found the multi-million-pound properties had been “purchased as a result of criminal activity.”
• It was the first time a U.K. court had prosecuted an Unexplained Wealth Order — a law enforcement tool for investigating assets suspected of being paid for with dirty money.
• At the centre of the story is Khagani Bashirov, a Franco-Azerbaijani businessman,

Khagani Bashirov, a Franco-Azerbaijani businessman, was indicted in Luxembourg in October 2024 for his involvement in a significant money laundering scheme.

• Bashirov was linked to the embezzlement of millions of euros, which were funnelled through Luxembourg’s banking system.
• Bashirov, is a French citizen and the owner of VES Consultancy, acted as a key enabler for Hajiyev, setting up a globe-spanning corporate network that handled money siphoned out of the bank.
• His activities were connected to the infamous Azerbaijani Laundromat, a large-scale money laundering operation that moved vast sums of money from Azerbaijan into Europe.
• Bashirov’s conviction highlighted the use of complex corporate structures and shell companies to obscure the origins of the funds.
• He was charged with money laundering, forgery, and abuse of professional obligations.
• Despite his claims of innocence, the evidence presented by authorities showed that he played a central role in facilitating the movement of illicit funds.

Also, In Bashirov’s case, the Luxembourg Chamber of Notaries was involved at the highest levels.

• In March 2024, after several years of investigation, the Chamber’s president, Martine Schaeffer, was summoned to appear before the criminal court for failing to meet her anti-money laundering obligations.
• In its ruling, the Luxembourg court stated that she “should have refused to approve (certain) real estate sale contracts” in 2017 and 2018 on behalf of Bashirov’s companies.
• The court traced financial flows from Russia, the British Virgin Islands, and other offshore centres, and Schaeffer was fined €70,000.

National Crime Agency investigator claims

• OCCRP has obtained a detailed witness statement from the case, which sheds new light on how funds embezzled from the state-run bank flowed through the heart of Europe and into the U.K., where they were funnelled into property for Hajiyev and his family.  
• The 242-page statement from a National Crime Agency investigator claims the funds were siphoned through an account at Banque Internationale à Luxembourg — and that a Luxembourg-based Azerbaijani financier set up bank accounts and companies around the world to allow that to happen.
• The NCA witness statement alleges these companies moved vast amounts of money out of Azerbaijan — often in convoluted patterns through various companies and jurisdictions globally.
• Khagani Bashirov then helped make purchases on behalf of Hajiyev and his family.
• Khagani Bashirov, a French citizen and the owner of VES Consultancy, acted as a key enabler for Hajiyev, setting up a globe-spanning corporate network that handled money siphoned out of the bank.
• At least $175 million moved through VES Consultancy’s accounts at Banque Internationale à Luxembourg from 2011 to 2015, including around $14 million that the NCA alleged originated from the International Bank of Azerbaijan. The NCA claimed another nearly $450 million moved through other VES Consultancy accounts between 2005 and 2015.
• Most of the 10 million pounds used in 2013 to purchase the Mill Ride Golf Club in Berkshire, for instance, traveled from Azerbaijan in four parts to shell companies in other jurisdictions that were “associated” with Bashirov, before making their way through a British Virgin Islands company set up by Bashirov, the account at the Banque Internationale à Luxembourg associated with Bashirov’s main company, and then two Luxembourg shell companies.

Bashirov has admitted to setting up many of these companies, but insists he didn’t know the funds that moved through them were stolen.

In interviews, Bashirov has said that

• He is innocent of any crime and merely acted as Hajiyev's " fiduciary.”

• “Our part was only this: To organize companies, to arrange for investments to go through these companies,” he told an Azerbaijani interviewer last year.
• “What happened to this money after it went into the project? That’s not my department.”

Bashirov was charged in Luxembourg last month with

• Money laundering,
• Forgery and
• Abuse of professional obligations.

Hajiyev was sentenced to

• 15 years in prison in Baku in 2016.

Banque Internationale à Luxembourg itself was fined.

• 4.6 million euros by Luxembourg’s financial regulators in 2020 due to weaknesses in anti-money-laundering procedures.

NCA

• It’s unclear if the bank did anything to halt Bashirov and Hajiyev’s efforts.
• But experts say the NCA evidence raises questions about Luxembourg’s already-scrutinized banking sector and how well it is enforcing regulations.

You can read the full story.

• https://www.occrp.org/en/investigation/luxembourg-bank-central-to-purchase-of-high-end-real-estate-with-embezzled-azerbaijan-funds-uk-police-say
• https://forbiddenstories.org/the-villa-the-businessman-and-the-stolen-millions-from-the-french-riviera-to-luxembourg-revelations-on-azerbaijans-ill-gotten-gains/.