Aliyev's Offshore Companies

Newsflash!  There is corruption in Azerbaijan:

A corporate mogul whose business empire has won building contracts worth billions of dollars amid Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's massive construction spree is tied to the president's family through secretive offshore companies.

The businessman, Hassan Gozal, is the director of three British Virgin Islands (B.V.I.) companies set up in 2008 in the name of the president's daughters, according to secret documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ)...

Why the presidential family established these companies is unclear. What is clear is that the family took steps that obscured its involvement in the companies, using various agents to register the companies and direct them, at least on paper...

Hassan Gozal, the corporate mogul listed as a director of Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva's companies, is a busy man...

Documents show the Gozal brothers' business interests have won major contracts from Azerbaijan's state-owned oil company, where Aliyev served as an executive before becoming president...

In all, their companies have won construction contracts in and around Baku totaling some $4.5 billion.