London Court Arrests Zamira Hajiyeva�s Jewels

Baku / 05.11.18 / Turan: British authorities arrested the jewels of Zamira Hajiyeva, the wife of the former head of the International Bank of Azerbaijan, and demand that she explain where she took the money to buy real estate in London with a total value of £ 22 million (28.5 million US dollars).

The seized jewelry was evaluated at Christie's auction house. According to the newspaper Daily Telegraph, the jewelry was to be put up for auction.

Zamira Hajiyeva became the first foreigner in Britain, whose sources of wealth are demanded to be opened by the National Crime Agency. She attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies by her inexplicably luxurious lifestyle. The wife of the former head of the International Bank of Azerbaijan acquired real estate for 22 million pounds and spent about 16 million pounds on luxury goods and other things at Harrods department store in London alone.

She also owns a golf club in Ascot worth about 10 million pounds (13 million dollars).

In 2018, the British authorities received the right to send inquiries about property of unidentified origin to foreigners owning assets of 50 thousand pounds (65 thousand dollars). First of all, we are talking about those suspected of criminal activity, as well as about influential political figures from countries outside the European Economic Area.

Hajiyeva herself insisted that she received all the funds legally, and appealed to the court with a request to stop the investigation of the NCA. But this week it became known that the NCA arrested about 50 items of expensive jewelry that had been pre-evaluated by Christie's.

Among them, there is a necklace of sapphires and rubies Boucheron worth up to 120 thousand pounds (156 thousand dollars) and a pearl necklace by Van Cleef & Arpels, priced at 20 thousand pounds (26 thousand dollars). The jewels were evaluated at the request of Hajiyeva"s daughter Leyla Mahmudova.

The NCA claims that it temporarily confiscated these jewelry items, as it considers it necessary to investigate where the money came from for their purchase. Westminster City Court ruled that within the framework of the investigation of the origin of the money, the NCA can keep the jewelry in its possession for six months.

If the owner of the jewels and real estate in detail and convincingly cannot prove the legal origin of the capital, then the High Court of London can confiscate them.

Recall that the former head of the IBA Jahangir Hajiyev was sentenced to 15 years in prison on charges of embezzlement, misappropriation and fraud in 2015. He is accused of embezzlement amounting to several hundred million dollars.-02D-