A millionaire Tory donor who owns London’s famous Conran Shop has been named in new court documents as one of the sources of money used to buy properties that the National Crime Agency alleges were purchased with the proceeds of crime.
Javad Marandi, who also owns the Emilia Wickstead fashion brand and a stake in the Anya Hindmarch handbag retailer, is shown in flow charts submitted to the High Court as making payments to the Azeri MP and businessman Javanshir Feyziyev that were later used in the acquisition of 13 homes in London.
The properties, which are in Colindale and worth several millions of pounds, are among 22 homes in a £50 million London property empire built up by Mr Feyziyev and his wife Parvana now under a High Court freezing order obtained by the NCA.
Law enforcers allege that the properties were bought using funds moved into Britain via a complex money laundering operation involving the use of shell companies, fake invoices and other false accounting.
A Liechtenstein bank account – which the NCA has told the court was partly funded by a $700,000 payment to Mr Feyziyev from Mr Marandi – has also been frozen on the same basis that it contains suspected criminal proceeds.
Both Mr Feyziyev and his wife have denied any wrongdoing and insisted via their lawyers that their properties were bought using the “substantial fortune” generated by the politician’s legitimate business interests. They include tobacco, pharmaceutical and hotel businesses among others.
Mr Marandi is not a party to the freezing order proceedings against the Feyziyevs, but has also previously denied wrongdoing after being named by a judge as a “person of importance” in earlier account forfeiture proceedings brought by the NCA against Mrs Feyziyeva, the Feyziyevs’ son Orkhan, and nephew Elman Javanshir.
That case led to £5.6million being forfeited to the NCA from the trio’s bank accounts after a judge at Westminster Magistrates Court ruled that the money represented the likely proceeds of crime brought into the country via the “Azerbaijan laundromat” money laundering scheme.
Mr Marandi, who was not a party to those proceedings, initially secured an anonymity order to prevent his connection to the case becoming known to the public.
But he was later named after a successful legal challenge by the Evening Standard and the BBC was upheld by two High Court judges in a judgement which stated that the original anonymity order should never have been granted.
His lawyers responded by pointing out that Mr Marandi was not subject to any criminal proceedings and said he was a respected businessman who had made extensive wealth from his lawful business activities.
The new court revelations are likely to generate increased scrutiny, however, with the documents also showing that businesses linked to Mr Marandi were part of the money flows leading to some of the property purchases made by the Feyziyevs.
The transactions - highlighted in a skeleton argument submitted to the High Court by the NCA opposing the Feyziyevs’ attempt to have the freezing order on their properties lifted - include one chart showing that Mr Marandi was among the sources of the funds used to buy nine properties at Golding House in the Beaufort Square development in Colindale in 2016 and 2017.
The chart shows Mr Marandi making a 2015 payment of $500,000 labelled as “account replenishment” that went into Javanshir Feyziyev’s US dollar account at the ABLV bank in Latvia. Money from the politician’s dollar account at the bank was later transferred into his sterling account with the bank before being used in the Golding House purchases.
The same chart shows that a $1,013,500 payment from a company called Brightmax was also made into Mr Feyziyev’s US dollar account at the Latvian bank as part of the chain of transactions leading to the acquisition by Mr Feyziyev and his wife of the nine Golding House homes.
A previous court hearing has heard that Brightmax had been part of a “ significant money laundering scheme in existence in Azerbaijan, Estonia and Latvia” and was believed by the NCA to be owned by Mr Marandi.
Mr Marandi and Brightmax are also listed as among the sources of funds paid into Mr Feyziyev’s Latvian bank dollar account that were later used, via further transfers, to buy four properties at Goldhawk House in the Beaufort Square development in 2016.
A further $700,000 payment by Mr Marandi into Mr Feyziyev’s dollar account at the ABLV bank In Latvia is shown in the High Court charts illustrating the money flows leading into a Liechtenstein bank account held by the politician that has now been frozen as the suspected proceeds of crime.
A $500,000 payment by Brightmax is shown in the same flow chart leading via Mr Feyziyev’s Latvian account into the Liechtenstein account.
The NCA flow charts submitted to the High Court also show a company called Avromed Seychelles, which earlier court proceedings have heard was described in bank documents as owned by Mr Marandi, involved in transferring funds into the Liechtenstein account and as part of the chain of transactions involved in the purchase of Mr Feyziyev’s two properties, costing £18.6million and £8.1million respectively, at Whistler Square in Chelsea Barracks.
Avromed Seychelles features further in the NCA charts showing the money flows behind the purchases at Golding House and Goldhawk House, and is similarly shown as linked to the purchase of six more properties, at Argent House and Cavendish House, in the same Colindale development and the purchase of the Feyziyevs’ property at Cumberland Terrace overlooking Regent’s Park.
The disclosures come as the NCA considers its next steps following its successful opposition to the attempt by the Feyziyevs to have the freezing order imposed on their properties lifted.
The judge in the case, Mr Justice Poole, said in a judgement that the freezing order should stay in place because there was "compelling" evidence including “rapid .. movements of tainted money” that the couple’s £50million London property empire had been bought with the proceeds of crime.
Mr Justice Poole said there was also "a good arguable case" that Mr Feyziyev was personally "involved in dishonest conduct, including fraud and money laundering" and that he had used funds generated through “unlawful conduct” to purchase his homes in the capital.
The latest court developments follow the earlier forfeiture proceedings against Mrs Feyziyeva, the couple’s son Orkhan and their nephew Elman Javanshir.
A court judgement in that case found that Mr Marandi, who has a home on Belgravia’s Eaton Square and whose other business interests have included the Wed2B wedding outfit retailer and being landlord of the Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire, either owned or was connected to companies involved in a “criminal enterprise” moving vast sums of illicit funds around the world and into this country.
The judgement stated that Mr Marandi received $49million directly from the bank account of one of the companies used “to launder the proceeds of crime” as part of a money laundering scheme - known as the "Azerbaijan laundromat" - and that one of the companies owned by Mr Marandi received a further $107million from the same account.
It also showed that Mr Marandi was a conduit for some of the money later forfeited from the account of the Feyziyevs’ son Orkhan as the likely proceeds of crime.
A statement issued on Mr Marandi's behalf by his solicitor Julian Pike denied any wrongdoing and accused the NCA of pursuing a "false narrative" that was contrary to the findings of investigations commissioned by Mr Marandi that had shown him to be innocent.
Mr Pike added: "Mr Marandi’s wealth is entirely the product of his genuine and legitimate business interests, including his substantial commercial interests in Azerbaijan, all of which is well documented and can be substantiated;
"Notwithstanding the further time the NCA has had to investigate matters properly, it remains the case that the NCA has made no approach to Mr Marandi and, as a result, it continues to put forward false claims in respect of him.
"While we and our client have become used to the lack of substance from the NCA, its willingness to persist with a false narrative is still startling."
