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Gulnara Karimova, a globe-trotting former billionaire socialite and daughter of former Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov, was arrested in Switzerland Charged with leading an international criminal syndicate.
Karimova, 51, has been held in Tashkent since 2014 and is accused of looting hundreds of millions of dollars from Uzbekistan and systematically bribing business executives and government officials around the world. She is also accused of laundering ill-gotten gains through a series of companies and bank accounts in Switzerland.
Swiss prosecutors filed charges against Karimova at the Swiss Federal Criminal Court in Bellinzona on Thursday afternoon. Karimova spent years traveling the world as a United Nations diplomat with immunity from prosecution, promoting her fashion brand and hobnobbing with celebrities.
The case accuses her of leading a criminal organization known as “The Office,” which consisted of dozens of individuals and more than 100 independent companies – all with clear legitimate business interests – that secretly worked together to conceal stolen goods and make them available to Members get rich.
Karimova’s Geneva-based lawyer Grégoire Manguit said she “disputes all charges and will fight for acquittal”. “The criminal organization theory is completely controversial. Just a year ago, ten years after the investigation began, Swiss prosecutors pulled it out of a hat,” he said.
He added: “Our client Gulnara Karimova has been arbitrarily detained for nearly 10 years. She has not disclosed how long she will remain in an Uzbek prison.”
Shortly after the indictment was filed, Swiss federal prosecutors said: “Especially taking into account its size, organizational model, infrastructure, the size of the assets held and the qualifications of certain members, “the ‘Office’ carried out criminal activities as a professional enterprise. , comply with mandatory regulations and adhere to strict task assignments, while also resorting to violence and intimidation. “
The central hub of “The Office” is said to be the Swiss company Zeromax, which collapsed in 2010 in what became Switzerland’s second-largest ever bankruptcy. Zeromax’s implosion went largely unnoticed for more than a decade because of Switzerland’s opaque corporate disclosure laws.
In 2021, the Financial Times revealed that the company’s creditors, who were owed 2.5 billion Swiss francs, were suing auditor Ernst & Young, which had signed off on Zeromax’s accounts for years despite the company’s highly unusual activities. Millions of dollars were spent on jewelry, luxury medical treatments and properties that were apparently unrelated to its official activities as a holding company for Uzbek natural resources and construction companies.
On Thursday, Karimova was dubbed the “Princess of Uzbekistan” for her lavish lifestyle, and the indictment also noted that a criminal investigation into Lombard Odier, one of Switzerland’s most prominent private banks, was “ongoing.” conduct”.
Karimova used Lombard Odier’s safe to store diamonds and other gems worth millions of francs. More than 400 million Swiss francs in liquid assets remain frozen in bank accounts in Karimova’s name.
Prosecutors said the bank was being investigated “for alleged failure to exercise due diligence in financial transactions and serious money laundering.”
A spokesman for Lombard Odier said the bank did not comment on ongoing investigations but noted that it had been cooperating with investigators in the case since 2012.
Karimova has avoided investigation in Switzerland for years thanks to diplomatic immunity granted to her by her various positions at the United Nations in Geneva.
However, with the declining health and death of her father, Islam Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan as authoritarian president from 1991 to 2016, Karimova lost her strong political protection. She was placed under house arrest in 2014 during a change of political power in Tashkent, and was convicted of corruption in Uzbekistan in 2017.
Her legal representatives claim that she has since been tortured and denied basic human rights.
Swiss prosecutors allege that “the office” began operating in Switzerland in 2005 and used the country to help collect stolen funds over the next decade.
The initial and main source of the group’s income is said to have been bribes paid by Western telecommunications companies in the early 2000s to develop Uzbek communications networks. Since then, the organization has grown in ambition and scope.
In a leaked diplomatic cable in 2010, the U.S. State Department declared her a “robber baron” and noted that she used her father’s power to “coerce and coerce a share of virtually every lucrative business” in Uzbekistan.
Britain’s Serious Fraud Office said in August it had taken control of three properties worth more than £20 million owned by Karimova.
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