Sahra FZCO

Sahra FZCO is a holding company registered in the Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai.[4] [5] Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva are the company’s ultimate beneficial owners.[5]

Sahra FZCO owns land and property in Dubai, including the five-star Sofitel hotel and spa on the man-made Palm Jumeirah islands and the Mercure Barsha Heights hotel in central Dubai.[517]

In 2013, the company jointly owned Gilan Holding LLC, a major Azerbaijani conglomerate, with Shams Al Sahra FZCO, a company owned by the sons of Kamaladdin Heydarov, Azerbaijan’s emergency situations minister.[665]

Sahra FZCO has two managers: Iranian businessman Behzad Ahadpour Khanghah and British private banker Farnoush Farsiar.[5] Khanghah is the managing director of MIRK General Trading LLC, the property manager and rent collector for Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva’s Dubai villas and hotels.[108] Farsiar is the founder of Plato Capital, a Dubai-based investment fund.[209] Sahra FZCO’s contact email address is a Plato Capital email address.[6] [4]

Sahra FZCO was a customer of Malta’s Pilatus Bank,[11] which was shuttered in 2018 over systemic failures to comply with anti-money laundering regulations.[587] Farsiar, along with Australian accountant Robert John Baker, were authorized signatories for Sahra FZCO, issuing payment instructions for the company. [11] When the Aliyeva sisters became Pilatus Bank clients, the Dubai Sofitel and the Mercure Barsha Heights, then known as the Yassat Gloria Hotel Apartments, were described as their source of wealth.[11]