A Family Affair
“A fish rots from the head down,” or so they say in Azerbaijan.
In a country where almost all power rests with President Ilham Aliyev, who has ruled with an iron fist for 20 years, both business and high office are dynastic affairs. President Aliyev came to power after the death of his father, Heydar Aliyev, who seized power in 1993 coup and ruled the country as an autocrat in the chaotic years after the fall of the Soviet Union.[556] [1014] Today, having been in power for more than 30 years, the Aliyev family sits atop both the country and a sprawling business empire that has sparked more than a few questions.
While President Ilham Aliyev has himself been directly implicated in several corruption scandals,[1155] he has breezily shrugged off suggestions that that he and his family have enriched themselves at the public’s expense. In 2021, Aliyev told reporters that he had been a successful businessman before entering office, adding, “When I was elected president, I was not a poor man. After that, I suspended my direct involvement in the business and transferred it to family members.”[1171]
But his previous career—and his $228,000 yearly salary—do not fully account for his family’s substantial fortune and dominant place in Azerbaijan’s economy.[516]
Dynastic daughters
Although Azerbaijani law prohibits public officials from engaging in business—requiring them to declare their assets and shareholdings, as well as those of their family members—this rule is often circumvented.[1164] [1170] Asset declarations and shareholder information are not public, and family members of senior officials have been known to oversee businesses that receive preferential treatment from the state.
Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva, the daughters of President Aliyev, are a prime example. Despite being in their teens and 20s and relatively inexperienced when they got their start, the sisters today sit atop an empire of more than 140 companies in 19 countries holding more than $13 billion in assets.[1407] [1406] [521] [341] [517] [518] [511] [251] [536] Most of their companies are mere shells, and there is little public trace of either sister’s involvement in the day-to-day dealings of their core businesses, a string of Azerbaijani mega conglomerates.[1116] [429] [1112] [280] [1377] On the few occasions when one of the sisters appears in official press releases about the conglomerates,[1378] [1376] mention of their ownership and control is notably absent, suggesting that their involvement is being actively concealed. All of this raises serious questions as to whether Azerbaijan’s first family is taking advantage of their powerful position, presiding over a vast network of corruption and patronage that serves to further entrench the family’s violent control of the country.[1157]
While several other family clans compete for power and control of various industries,[1157] [1158] Azerbaijan’s first family dominates almost every aspect of the economy. “They don’t just own stakes in every sector, but stakes in every meaningful segment,” said Gubad Ibadoghlu, an economist and opposition figure.[1159] [1160] [1161] [1162] [1163] Contracts and opportunities are awarded at the first family’s pleasure, and brutal persecution awaits those who challenge their authority, as was the case for Ibadoghlu, who was detained last year on charges of currency counterfeiting—widely believed to have been brought in response to his vocal anti-corruption stance.[1384] He languished in jail for nine months, his health deteriorating, before being released into house arrest in April 2024, pending a trial.[1384] [1378]
PASHA Holding—one of the sisters’ conglomerates and the primary source of their wealth—is among Azerbaijan’s largest private companies, employing more than 20,000 people and holding lucrative stakes in banking, insurance, investment, construction, tourism, and technology.[995] [527] President Aliyev has praised PASHA Holding for its work, adding that “it consistently carries out this work without advertising itself, without boasting.”[1377] Its construction wing, PASHA Construction, is alleged to have received preferential treatment from the state, benefitting from millions in public funds, acquiring public land without a public tender, and facing few of the bureaucratic obstacles that beset other developers.[604] [1225] [1226] [1391] [1392] Leyla and Arzu Aliyev also control almost half of Azerbaijan’s banking assets through their ownership interests in PASHA Bank, Kapital Bank, Xalq Bank, and Bank Avrasiya.[1152]
Another of the sisters’ conglomerates, Gilan Holding (recently dissolved and merged into the wider Aliyev empire),[1010] owned a vast array of agricultural projects and food processing plants,[684] [1373] [1374] many of which President Aliyev opened in his capacity as head of state, in some cases boasting about the public support the projects received.[1372] Yet nowhere in the accompanying press releases did the multibillion-dollar conglomerate publicize that its largest stakeholders were the president’s daughters.
International outreach
Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva’s empire has grown beyond the borders of Azerbaijan, encompassing almost a billion dollars’ worth of property as far afield as the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, the Czech Republic, and Romania.[516] [517] [11] [518] [519] [520] [521] [536] [1029] The financial transactions used for these overseas acquisitions were carefully concealed from view, but during an 18-month window between 2015 and 2017, banks in the UAE and Malta transferred a total of $180 million on behalf of the sisters and companies they controlled—transfers that were aided by a trusted network of international businessmen and financial professionals. Some of these transfers did not go unnoticed. Several Western banks and law firms that acted for the sisters have been investigated by police and forensic investigators, and in some cases, firms have been hit with hefty fines and regulatory actions for ignoring red flags for potential money laundering while working with the sisters.
Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva have also poured their money into cultural soft power projects that further cement the first family’s grip on power. The sisters’ media companies, restaurants, and films paint a romanticized image of Azerbaijan, parrot the regime’s official line on Armenia, Azerbaijan’s longtime adversary, and promote conspiracy theories that critics of the first family are working with hostile Western powers.[1165] [1166] [1167] [1168]
The sisters’ soft power projects obscure their pivotal role as figureheads of a violent kleptocracy. While the first family’s fortunes have swollen, their critics and opponents have been brutally persecuted. Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, 13 journalists and political activists were detained—the latest in a wave of a long-running and brutal crackdowns that jail hundreds of protestors every year.[1153] [1154]
It is no coincidence that many of the sisters’ luxury properties are in countries such as Russia and the UAE, which rarely, if ever, comply with foreign law enforcement requests and have been slow to implement anti-money laundering reforms.[961] [1375] [1049] [1376] If genuine opposition to President Aliyev were to arise, the sisters’ overseas real estate could double as secure bolt holes from which the first family could still access their wealth, some of which has been deposited in banks based in tax havens.
Uncovering the Aliyev Empire
Mapping the extent of the Aliyeva sisters’ empire of suspicious wealth is a necessary prerequisite for greater accountability and transparency. Although the task is hampered by concerted efforts to restrict public documents, obscure ownership, and move funds through secretive jurisdictions, The Sentry has pieced together a major part of the network, visualizing for the first time its expansive reach. Aliyev Empire offers a detailed glimpse into how Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva acquired their wealth, as well as the tactics they used to obfuscate their links to it. The network it visualizes is likely just the tip of the iceberg, however, opening the door to further investigation and research.
