First of three parts.
By Will Fitzgibbon, Miranda Patrucic and Marcos García Rey.
In this story:
- President Aliyev’s family named in a proposal to reap benefits from a complex offshore structure to hold interests in a major conglomerate
- Children and sister of Azerbaijan’s President revealed in connection with previously unknown offshore companies
- New revelations that President Aliyev’s children controlled a majority interest in a controversial gold mine project
On Oct. 31, 2003, Ilham Aliyev, the newly elected president of Azerbaijan, stood behind a podium and a profusion of white flowers to address presidents, prime ministers and 2,000 other guests assembled at the Respublika Palace. First touching the constitution and then the Koran, Mr. Aliyev swore to serve his people. That night, fireworks lit up the sky of the Azeri capital, Baku.
Mr. Aliyev’s election to lead this energy-rich former Soviet republic bordering both Russia and Iran had been all but guaranteed. His ailing father, Heydar, an ex-KGB officer, had served in the same role for the previous 10 years. Election monitors reported that police had beaten and detained political opponents, in line with the country’s reputation for repression.
Becoming president wasn’t Mr. Aliyev’s only ascension during 2003. Using a network of secretive companies in offshore tax havens, his family, advisers and allies set about acquiring expensive overseas homes and positions in the country’s valuable industries and natural resources, including the family’s majority control of a major gold mine that has been unknown until now.
The new details of the Aliyev offshore empire emerge from secret records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and other media partners from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama- headquartered law firm that helps to set up hard-to-trace corporate structures for clients. The more than 11 million documents reviewed by ICIJ and its partners – emails, bank accounts and client records – represent the inner workings of Mossack Fonseca for nearly 40 years, from 1977 to December 2015.
Family Alliances
Records show that, in mid-2003, months before the October presidential election, Fazil Mammadov, Azerbaijan’s tax minister, began to create AtaHolding, which has since become one of the country’s biggest conglomerates. Mr. Mammadov, influential in his own right, subsequently invited President Aliyev’s family to join him, cementing a potentially potent and advantageous business and political partnership.
AtaHolding is a corporation that has significant interests in Azerbaijan’s banking, telecommunications, construction, mining, oil and gas sectors. Its most recent corporate filing in 2014 shows it held over $490 million in assets.
The leaked files show that the tax minister created a company in Panama through Mossack Fonseca named FM Management Holding Group S.A. Stand-in directors — straw men supplied by Mossack Fonseca — concealed the fact that Mr. Mammadov was involved.
Mr. Mammadov then created a second offshore entity – this time a foundation – called UF Universe Foundation. Panama foundations are subject to strict confidentiality laws. Anyone who discloses information about them can be fined or imprisoned.
(To be continued)
