Zurich — Switzerland’s federal prosecutor said on Thursday it had filed an indictment against the daughter of Uzbekistan’s former president, accusing her of taking bribes and running an elaborate criminal organisation known as “The Office”.
Gulnara Karimova, daughter of Islam Karimov — who ruled Uzbekistan from 1991 to 2016 — is accused of leading the operation, which allegedly channelled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bribes from telecoms companies.
Money was funnelled through bank accounts in several countries before being transferred to bank accounts in Switzerland, the office of the attorney-general (OAG) said.
“The beneficial owners of these bank accounts were ‘men of straw’, thereby concealing the fact that Gulnara Karimova was the true beneficiary,” the OAG said.
Huge sums were involved, with more than Sf340m ($370.25m) already confiscated with a view to being returned to Uzbekistan.
More than Sf440m of assets remain under seizure in the proceedings against Karimova and another accused, a former general director of the Uzbek subsidiary of a Russian telecoms company not named in the indictment.
Karimova was once a successful businessperson and her country’s UN representative in Geneva.
She was jailed in Uzbekistan in 2019 for violating the terms of her house arrest after receiving a five-year sentence in 2015 on charges of embezzlement and extortion.
In the past, she has denied any wrongdoing. Her spokesperson has been approached for comment on the Swiss indictment.
Source: Business Day