11-year-old spends $44 million on Dubai homes
Boy’s shopping spree puts spotlight on alleged corruption in Azerbaijan
Image: Aerial view of residences on Palm Jumeirah
Records indicate the son of Azerbaijan’s president may have bought
nine waterfront mansions on Palm Jumeirah, Dubai’s luxury real estate
development pictured here.
By Andrew Higgins
updated 11:37 p.m. PT, Thurs., March. 4, 2010
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – Even by the standards of a city that
celebrates extravagance, it was a spectacular shopping spree: In just
two weeks early last year, an 11-year-old boy from Azerbaijan became
the owner of nine waterfront mansions.
The total price tag: about $44 million — or roughly 10,000 years’
worth of salary for the average citizen of Azerbaijan. But the preteen
who owns a big chunk of some of Dubai’s priciest real estate seems to
be anything but average.
His name, according to Dubai Land Department records, is Heydar
Aliyev, which just happens to be the same name as that of the son of
Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev. The owner’s date of birth,
listed in property records, is also the same as that of the
president’s son.
Officials in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, declined to comment on
how the president’s son — or at least an Azerbaijani schoolboy with
the same birth date and the same name as the son’s — came to own
mansions on Palm Jumeirah, a luxury real estate development popular
with multimillionaire British soccer stars and others with cash to
burn. Ilham Aliyev’s annual salary as president is the equivalent of
$228,000, far short of what is needed to buy even the smallest Palm
property.
Azer Gasimov, the president’s spokesman, declined to discuss the Dubai
real estate purchases. "I have no comment on anything. I am stopping
this talk. Goodbye," he said when contacted by telephone and told
about the names on the property records. Gasimov did not respond to
requests for further comment sent by fax, e-mail and cellphone text
message.
Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic blessed with plentiful oil and
gas reserves yet blighted by widespread poverty outside its glitzy
capital, has long had a reputation for corruption. But the Dubai
purchases, which have not been reported before, could provide a rare
concrete example of just how much money the country’s governing elite
has amassed and of the ways in which at least part of this wealth has
been stashed overseas.
‘Pervasive corruption’ The transactions sharpen a dilemma that has
shadowed Washington’s relations with Azerbaijan for years: how to
reconcile the United States’ security and energy interests in the
oil-rich Caspian Sea nation with what the State Department, in a
report last year on human rights around the world, described as the
"pervasive corruption" of its increasingly authoritarian regime.
Azerbaijan has sent troops to support U.S. democracy-building efforts
in Afghanistan and Iraq but at home has retreated steadily from
democratic practices, according to diplomats and experts on the
region. Transparency International, in a 2009 survey of global
corruption, ranked Azerbaijan among the worst at 143 out of 180
nations.
In addition to recording nine properties owned by Heydar Aliyev, the
now-12-year-old schoolboy, Dubai’s Land Department also has files in
the names of Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva. President Aliyev has two
daughters with the same names and roughly the same ages. Their exact
dates of birth could not be established, but various reports indicate
Leyla’s birthday is the same as that of the Azerbaijani woman who
figures in the Land Department records.
In all, Azerbaijanis with the same names as the president’s three
children own real estate in Dubai worth about $75 million, property
data indicate. Dubai real estate dealers with knowledge of some of the
transactions said the purchases were made by a buyer representing
Azerbaijan’s ruling family. The dealers said the properties were paid
for upfront.
Ali Kerimli, chairman of the Azerbaijani Popular Front, an opposition
party, said in a telephone interview, "We all know that our country is
one of the most corrupt." But when told about the Dubai purchases, he
added that he was surprised at the apparent lack of effort to conceal
them.
Azerbaijan’s leaders, Kerimli said, "face no danger" because the
judiciary, anti-corruption bodies and most of the country’s media
outlets are firmly under their control.
‘Resource curse’
The rush to move assets overseas, often with scant regard for returns,
is a common feature of many oil-producing nations, where corrupt
elites seek to ensure that their wealth is safe just in case political
winds at home change. The phenomenon is part of the "resource curse,"
an ailment that has deformed the economies and politics of
corruption-addled, oil-producing nations from Nigeria to Venezuela.
Kerimli said Washington paid too much attention to security and energy
issues and thus "sent a signal to our country that democratic reform
is not important." When Richard B. Cheney visited Baku as vice
president in 2008, he not only held talks with President Aliyev
focused on energy but also met with executives of BP and the U.S. oil
company Chevron, both of which have operations in Azerbaijan, as do
Exxon and other foreign oil companies. Azerbaijan and the United
States, Cheney said, "have many interests in common."
The Obama administration has also focused on strategic issues in its
relations with Azerbaijan. On a visit to Baku two weeks ago, William
J. Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, praised
Azerbaijan for supporting the United States in Afghanistan and
trumpeted the role of a U.S.-backed oil pipeline from Baku to Turkey
that broke Russia’s stranglehold on energy exports from the Caspian
Sea.
In a speech, Burns avoided direct criticism of Azerbaijan, noting
only: "We also believe that the strengthening of democratic
institutions, rule of law and respect for human rights will have a
positive effect on the future of this country."
The Aliyev government and its supporters, meanwhile, have tried to
burnish Azerbaijan’s image, sponsoring trips to Baku by prominent
foreigners and hiring lobbyists to trumpet the country’s achievements.
David Plouffe, President Obama’s former election campaign manager,
visited Baku last year to deliver a paid-for speech; a few months
later came former British prime minister Tony Blair, who also received
a fee to speak. Plouffe declined to comment about his trip.
CONTINUED : Family’s long grip on power