Owner of multi-million pound golf club to be questioned by detectives

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Alistair Dunsmuir avatar
Alistair Dunsmuir

A woman who owns an ‘upmarket golf club’ in south-east England is to be questioned by detectives about her purchase of the facility, according to The Times newspaper.

The woman, who can be identified only as Mrs A, is the subject of two unexplained wealth orders (UWOs) relating to properties jointly valued at £22 million that she is deemed to own. She is believed to have paid £10.5 million for the golf club.

The newspaper states that she is the wife of the former chairman of a state-owned bank who is serving a 15-year jail term in their homeland for fraud and embezzlement.

However, under wide-ranging reporting restrictions, neither the woman, her husband, the bank nor their home country can be identified.

Mrs A recently lost a High Court challenge to one UWO that relates to a central London house that she bought for £11.5 million in 2009 through a company registered in the British Virgin Islands.

The second UWO relates to the golf course. It was purchased through a different company vehicle for £10.5 million. The newspaper states this was ‘several years ago’ and the venue is in ‘south-east England’.

The orders, obtained by the National Crime Agency (NCA), prevent the woman from selling her properties unless she can prove that the money used to buy them was legally earned.

Documents at the Land Registry relating to the properties have been marked with a restriction notice stating that the High Court has ordered that ‘no disposition of the registered estate is to be registered except with the consent of the National Crime Agency’.

Mrs A spent £16.3 million at Harrods between 2006 and 2016

During her court challenge on one of the UWOs it was disclosed that Mrs A spent £16.3 million at Harrods between 2006 and 2016, including purchasing £150,000 worth of jewellery in one day. The spending was spread over 35 credit cards billed to the state-owned bank that her husband chaired.

‘Mrs A is expected to have a further opportunity to challenge the order before the Court of Appeal, despite Mr Justice Supperstone having dismissed eight grounds on which she argued against it,’ reports the paper.

Update: A few hours after publishing this story the High Court ruled that the woman should not remain anonymous any longer. She has been named as Zamira Hajiyeva and the golf club is Mill Ride Golf Club in Berkshire.

 

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One response to “Owner of multi-million pound golf club to be questioned by detectives”

  1. djm avatar
    djm

    On the face of it, the Unexplained Wealth Order against Zamira Hajiyeva shows the UK cracking down on the torrent of corrupt money that gushes in to the City of London every single second. But dig deeper.

    Hajiyev’s husband had fallen out of favour with the appallingly kleptocratic Aliev regime in Azerbaijan – a dictatorship whose corruption can be measured by the infallible indicator that Tony Blair is currently working for it. Hundreds of billions have been plundered from Azerbaijan’s oil revenue by the Azeri oligarchs.

    So is the British government going after the very substantial assets in the UK of the ruling Aliev family? No. Is it going after the very substantial assets in the UK of the oligarchs surrounding the Aliev family? No. It is only going after almost the only Azeri oligarch who fell foul of the regime, and is taking an action which the Baku dictator will applaud rather than decry.

    While her father was still dictator of Uzbekistan, Gulnara Karimova was subject to seizure of looted wealth and investigation in Switzerland, France and Sweden, among others. In the UK, where she had a home and very substantial assets, no action whatsoever.

    What are we to make of Theresa May’s huffing and puffing about the Skripal affair, when the UK’s richest resident is Alisher Usmanov, who is Vladimir Putin’s old flatmate, right hand man in the media and business world and chairman of Gazprominvestholdings? There is no chance whatsoever any action will be taken against Usmanov, who acquired his assets in the most dubious manner imaginable. Usmanov is far too entrenched in the City.

    These people interact with the British “elite” in any number of surprising ways. Claudia Winkleman’s husband made big money from producing a vanity film project for the Azeri dictator’s daughter. Former Foreign Secretary Dr David Owen is Usmanov’s factotum in the UK. Just two of many thousands of links that tie the UK’s gilded elite in with the looted wealth.

    The Conservative Party has directly received donations totaling over £3 million from Russian oligarchs. That buys a lot of influence. But more important still is the influence of the City of London, where wideboy bankers grow rich on the World’s most sophisticated and “respectable” money laundering operation. While the Tories are determined to bluster us into a new cold war to benefit the military, industrial and security complex, none of the sanctions taken to date and none that will be taken have had any serious deleterious effect on the holders of the hundreds of billions of money looted from the Russian people during the Western mandated and organised privatisation of Russia’s mineral and industrial assets. Even as false rage over Salisbury fills the airwaves, the oligarchs are privately being reassured their money and lifestyles are safe.

    In a United Kingdom dominated by the cesspit that is the City of London, it is not just that money talks. It is that nobody else is heard.

    H/T Craig Murray

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