Daughters of Azerbaijan President’s $13B Petrostate Empire Exposed in New Investigative Research Project

Spanning Dubai, London, Malta, and Moscow, massive private fortune of businesses and assets controlled by Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva, linking international banks and tangled networks of facilitators

The Sentry’s new interactive Atlas platform pieces together “Gigantic jigsaw puzzle” of shell companies, no-bid contracts, corporate data, and interlinked enterprises across oil sector, real estate, telecom, mining, construction, luxury hotels, and more

October 22, 2024 (Washington, DC and Brussels) – Today, The Sentry published a massive trove of data detailing a private petrostate business empire controlled by Arzu and Leyla Aliyeva, the daughters of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev.

Connecting open-source data and reporting by news organizations and NGOs worldwide with original investigations by The Sentry, today’s publication “Aliyev Empire” represents a highly detailed picture, revealing how two sisters secretly amassed a sprawling business empire worth more than $13 billion.

Statement by The Sentry: “This gigantic jigsaw puzzle reveals a portrait of a private petrostate empire, a multibillion-dollar treasure controlled by and benefitting the daughters of President Aliyev. As their father ruled the country with an iron fist, the meteoric rise in fortunes of the Aliyeva sisters raises more than a few questions as it presents a massive scope of business entities and activities in granular detail.”

With the launch of “Aliyev Empire” on The Sentry’s new Atlas platform, the full scope of collected data and analysis is now freely available for use by interested reporters, researchers, bank compliance officers, law enforcement agencies, and policymakers.

The Sentry’s Atlas includes a visual interface to explore and learn about the companies, banks, and individuals linked to the sisters’ business network, along with in-depth profiles of the businesspeople and firms who helped build it. In addition, “Network Insights” sections explain the various means and methods that Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva used in building their empire, spotlighting specific transactions, industries, companies, and associates.

Selected revelations and highlights in “Aliyev Empire”:

• $180M of Aliyev money moving between Malta, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi to make international property acquisitions.
• A $73M purchase of prime real estate in the outskirts of Moscow in a deal flagged as suspicious by money laundering investigators.
• Network maps and analysis of Aliyev family business operations spanning oil, banking, telecom, mining, commercial and private real estate, construction, media ventures, ski resorts, luxury hotels, restaurants, and more.
• Former tax ministry officials behind offshore companies that bought and sold overseas real estate on the sisters’ behalf, including in the British Virgin Islands.
• A pattern of receiving no-bid contracts, state funding, and favorable or unreimbursed loans.
• Major construction and renovation projects paid for but never completed or never started.
• Direct connections between the amassed wealth of the president’s family and the Azerbaijan oil industry, including links between dates of Aliyev business incorporations and the price of oil.
• Two separate London law firms linked to the sisters’ property deals.
• Details of PASHA Bank and the sisters’ dominance of Azerbaijan’s banking sector.
• The financial professionals behind a web of shell companies used by the sisters to move funds around the world.
• The sisters’ link to an Iranian businessman whose companies received major construction contracts from the Azerbaijan government.
• Leyla Aliyeva’s foundations, films, and media companies and their role in Azerbaijan’s overseas “soft power” project.
• More than a thousand corporate filings, court records, real estate records, and leaked information.

Learn more and access the “Aliyev Empire” project on The Sentry’s Atlas platform: https://atlas.thesentry.org/azerbaijan-aliyev-empire/

 

For media inquiries, please contact: Greg Hittelman, Director of Communications, [email protected]

About The Sentry
(Short descriptor for press use: “The Sentry, an investigative organization that tracks corruption”)

The Sentry is an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict, repression, and kleptocracy. Pull back the curtain on wars, mass atrocities, and other human rights abuses, and you’ll find grand corruption and unchecked greed. These tragedies persist because the perpetrators rarely face meaningful consequences. The Sentry aims to alter the warped incentive structures that continually undermine peace and good governance. Our investigations follow the money as it is laundered from war zones to financial centers around the world. We provide evidence and strategies for governments, banks, and law enforcement to hold the perpetrators and enablers of violence and corruption to account. These efforts provide new leverage for human rights, peace, and anti-corruption efforts. Learn more at: https://TheSentry.org