UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) has seized millions of dollars derived from a complex international ML scheme – the Azerbaijan laundromat. NCA’s action came after an investigation of the bank accounts linked to Javanshir Feyziyev, a member of the Azerbaijan parliament. Feyziyev is also Chair of the UK-Azerbaijan All Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, and Co-chair of the EU-Azerbaijan Parliamentary Cooperation Committee.
The authorities secured a Forfeiture Order for £5.6 million ($7.6m) in UK bank accounts of family members of Feyziyev. Additionally, the authorities obtained six Account Freezing Orders for accounts in the name of Feyziyev’s wife Parvana Feyziyeva, son Orkhan Javanshir, and nephew Elman Javanshir. The funds in these bank accounts were sourced from the Azerbaijan laundromat and thus can be used as recovery assets.
The ML scheme involved the flow of money through a sophisticated network of shell companies with bank accounts in Estonia and Latvia. The criminals added contracts and invoices with some of the transfers to misrepresent the transactions as legitimate business transactions. The authorities found that these documents were fake and meant to conceal the ML activities of the account holders. Overall, over £15.3m ($20.7m) were frozen in the bank accounts, of which over £5.6 million ($7.6m) were designated for forfeiture.
Source: National Crime Agency, UK