On January 31, 2022, the UK’s National Crime Agency announced the seizure of more than £5.6 million (approximately $7.6 million) after financial investigators secured a forfeiture order for funds in six UK bank accounts linked to Javanshir Feyziyev, an Azeri politician who serves as a member of the Azerbaijan parliament, Chair of the UK-Azerbaijan All Parliamentary Co-operation Committee, and Co-chair of the EU-Azerbaijan Parliamentary Co-operation Committee. The NCA reports that the seized funds were held in the names of Feyziyev’s wife, one of his children and his nephew.
NCA investigators suspected that the funds in the accounts contained the proceeds of a sophisticated international money laundering scheme in which funds were moved through an Azerbaijan laundromat using a complex network of shell companies with bank accounts in Estonia and Latvia, based on transfers that were supported by certain invoices and contracts that were supposedly for legitimate business transactions.