ISLAMABAD: A dictator’s daughter, Gulnara Karimova, who moonlighted as a pop star and diplomat, spent $240 million (£200 million) on properties from London to Hong Kong as per the report.
According to the Freedom for Eurasia study, Gulnara Karimova used UK companies to purchase homes and a jet using funds obtained through bribery and corruption. It goes on to say that accounting firms in London and the British Virgin Islands represented UK companies involved in the transactions. The story casts new doubt on the UK’s efforts to combat illegal wealth.
British authorities have long been accused of failing to do enough to prevent foreign criminals from using UK property to launder money. The ease with which Karimova obtained the UK property was described as “concerning” in the report. There is no indication that those acting on her behalf were aware of any connection to her, nor that the source of funds was suspicious. Nobody in the UK who provided those services has been investigated or fined.
Gulnara Karimova was expected to succeed father
Gulnara Karimova was widely expected to succeed her father, Islam Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan as president from 1989 until his death in 2016. She appeared in pop videos as “Googoosha,” owned a jewelry company, and served as ambassador to Spain. She then vanished from public view in 2014. She was arrested on corruption charges while her father was still in power, and she was sentenced in December 2017. She was sentenced to prison in 2019 for violating the terms of her house arrest.
Prosecutors accused her of being a member of a criminal organization that controlled assets worth more than $1 billion (£760 million) in 12 countries, including the United Kingdom, Russia, and the United Arab Emirates. “The Karimova case is one of the largest bribery and corruption cases in history,” says Tom Mayne, a research fellow at the University of Oxford and one of the researchers on the Freedom For Eurasia report. However, Karimova and her associates had already sold some of the allegedly corruptly acquired property.
