Two apartments and a mansion that belonged to Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of former President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov, who died on September 2, 2016, were confiscated in the UK. Gazeta.uz reports.
The real estate, according to the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO), was bought using the proceeds from corruption in Uzbekistan. The value of the property is estimated at more than 20 million pounds sterling (about $25 million, or 2.25 billion soms).
These are two apartments in the prestigious Belgravia district of London and a mansion in Surrey.
The SFO says that Gulnara Karimova received millions of dollars in bribes from telecommunications companies between 2004 and 2012 in exchange for helping them gain market access in Uzbekistan.
The SFO filed a lawsuit to seize Gulnara Karimova’s UK assets, including the three objects, in October 2018. The UK Supreme Court upheld the claim.
Earlier it was reported that Uzbekistan and Switzerland had already signed an agreement to return to Tashkent $131 million from the assets of the eldest daughter of the late Uzbek President Islam Karimov, Gulnara Karimova, which have been in Swiss banks since 2012.
Gulnara Karimova is serving a long prison sentence in Uzbekistan on cases of embezzlement and extortion. In August 2015, she was found guilty of extortion and tax evasion, and on December 18, 2017, within another case, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In March 2020, the Tashkent City Criminal Court increased Gulnara Karimova’s prison sentence to 13 years and four months in a new criminal case on the creation of a criminal community, extortion and embezzlement.
