Global Corruption Watchdog Points Finger At Pilatus Bank Over Aliyev Account
Left: Azerbaijan’s ruler Ilham Aliyev; Right: Pilatus Bank chairman Ali Sadr Hasheminejad
Transparency International, one of the world’s foremost anti-corruption watchdogs, warned that evidence published yesterday by The Daphne Project points to Pilatus Bank having primarily been set up “to facilitate kleptocratic transactions”.
“A new investigation suggesting that Pilatus Bank was used to launder millions of dollars for the ruling family of Azerbaijan and their associates should be a wake-up call on beneficial ownership transparency for the world’s richest nations,” said Casey Kelso, global advocacy director at Transparency International. “Pilatus Bank, currently closed and under investigation for money laundering by authorities in Malta, appears to have existed primarily to facilitate secretive kleptocratic transactions. While pressuring civil society, abusing human rights and manipulating elections at home, the Aliyevs have bought respect and luxury businesses in the Gulf and Europe through a network of proxies and shell companies.”
The Daphne Project yesterday revealed how the two daughters of Azerbaijan’s ruler Ilham Aliyev used a Pilatus Bank account to secretly move millions into Europe to invest in property and businesses across the continent and Dubai.
This bank account was first revealed last year by assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who wrote that the Aliyevs used it to funnel money to the offshore company Egrant. Caruana Galizia said that Egrant belonged to the wife of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, but Muscat has repeatedly denounced this claim as “the biggest lie in Malta’s political history”.
The confirmation of the Aliyevs’ Pilatus Bank account has now drawn international international to the story. The story was published a day after an internal Council of Europe inquiry found that there were “strong suspicions” that several members of its parliamentary assembly (PACE) had voted to soften their criticism of the Aliyev regime in return for cash and luxury gifts from Azerbaijan.
“The corrupt shouldn’t be able to hide behind complex legal structures to open accounts, make investments, and purchase luxury goods,” said Maira Martini, knowledge coordinator at Transparency International and co-author of the report. “We should be able to know who the individuals behind companies are, and where the funds for their investments come from. Transparency International urges countries to take swift action to end anonymous companies, in particular the establishment of public registers of beneficial ownership.”
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