Mayne, a research fellow at the University of Exeter, added that there is also a risk UWOs could be used by corrupt regimes to cement their position against dissident exiles.
“If I was a kleptocrat and I knew that my political enemy had a house in the UK, you could leak some info about this property to the press, potentially forcing a UWO to be issued,” he explained.
Dubious proof
The report found that the National Crime Agency (NCA) has been outmatched by the multinational law firms hired by kleptocrats, which specialise in constructing alibis for suspect wealth.
Kleptocrats can win UWO court cases with dubious proof, claimed the authors of the report, which said the “mere presence of information about wealth could prevent a UWO from being upheld, irrespective of the legitimacy of the claim or the nature of the wealth”.
The report highlighted a 2019 case involving Nurali Aliyev, the grandson of Kazakhstan’s former autocrat leader, where it said the judge was “surprisingly willing” to accept the arguments and evidence put forward by Aliyev’s lawyers.
Information from Aliyev’s LinkedIn profile was cited in the judge’s ruling as part of the proof that a property was purchased independently of his connections to Kazakhstan’s regime.
The NCA had issued UWOs against several family members of Nursultan Nazarbayev, an autocrat who ruled Kazakhstan for nearly three decades. The agency believed three multi-million-pound London properties were bought with wealth acquired by Nursultan’s former son-in-law, Rakhat Aliyev, who is Nurali Aliyev’s father.
Rakhat Aliyev was once one of the most powerful officials in Kazakhstan. But in 2007, he fell foul of his father-in-law and his assets were transferred to his ex-wife, Dariga Nazarbayeva, Nursultan’s eldest daughter, in a divorce Rakhat Aliyev alleged was fraudulent. He died in prison in 2015 while awaiting trial for the alleged murder of two bankers in Kazakhstan. Rakhat Aliyev maintained his innocence, claiming the charges were politically motivated.
Nurali Aliyev did not respond to openDemocracy’s requests for comment.
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