Switzerland is returning $133 million to Uzbekistan following a corruption scandal. A Swiss bank remains under investigation for its involvement.
The Swiss government will return 130 million Swiss francs ($133 million) in forfeited money to Uzbekistan after a six-year investigation, Switzerland's attorney general said in a statement on Monday. The probe centered on illegally taking money from foreign firms looking to enter the Uzbek market, only to launder the funds in Switzerland.
A close associate of Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the late president of Uzbekistan, was convicted in Switzerland of opening bank accounts between 2004 and 2013 to parcel money and hide the source and destination of the funds. Karimova, a former Uzbek ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva as well as aspiring pop star and model who has not been sighted publicly for several years, was indicted in the U.S. in March for allegedly soliciting bribes.
Genevan Connection
Lombard Odier is one bank which received the associate of Karimova's: the Geneva-based wealth manager told finews.com in 2017 it reported the transactions as potential money laundering in 2012. The bank is still under investigation, a spokesman for the attorney general said. A spokeswoman for Lombard Odier didn't comment on Monday.
The bank has been drawn into a long-running probe in Switzerland, Sweden, France, the Netherlands and the U.S. tied to the irregularities in the Uzbek telecommunications market. In Switzerland, prosecutors investigated two Karimova employees as well as Karimova herself, who once enjoyed immunity thanks to her diplomatic status.
Judgement Slammed
Her Swiss lawyer, Gregoire Mangeat, criticized the conviction, saying that the attorney general had failed to demonstrate that Karimova was a public official, or show a predicate offense to money-laundering. He noted that the Swiss prosecutor omitted to mention a February ruling in Sweden which acquitted ex-Telia executives of bribing Karimova for access to the Uzbek market.
The Swedish judgment hinged on a technicality: that Karimova wasn't responsible for dispensing telecom licenses in Uzbekistan. Karimova held no other official position other than the UN role for Uzbekistan, an opaque country where family members are frequently enlisted to wield «soft power» without an official role.
Karimova in «Bad Shape»
Her father, Islam Karimov, ran Central Asia’s most populous nation of 32 million for 27 years until his death three years ago. His successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, looks to uphold the tradition of giving offspring senior posts: in April, he named his daughter deputy head of the government agency in charge of communications and media regulation.
Mangeat, Karimova's Geneva lawyer, criticized her incarceration after a recent visit, tweeting that his client was in «bad shape. High blood pressure. Leg fully bandaged. No medical treatments. Fainted many times.» Karimova disappeared from public view five years ago, and according to her lawyer is being held in Zangiota, a women's prison in Tashkent.
