Some of the money came from companies with ties to the regime like Baktelekom MMC, connected to former minister Goknur Baki, Azarbaycan Metanol Kompani, Arash Medical Production[32] and offshore entities.
[29][33][34] The four front companies at the centre of the scheme (Metastar Invest, Hilux Services, Polux Management and LCM Alliance) were all limited partnerships registered in the UK.
Danske Bank handled the accounts of all four laundromat companies, allowing the billions to pass through its Estonian branch without due investigation into the provenance of the funds.
[27] During the period of the money laundering activities, the Azerbaijani government imprisoned more than 90 human rights activists, opposition politicians, and journalists (such as Khadija Ismayilova, Anar Mammadli, Intiqam Aliyev, Rasul Jafarov, Leyla Yunus) on politically motivated charges.
The investigation stated that Baguirov and his father served in numerous advisory roles to the Azerbaijani and Russian governments respectively and that “Baguirov did all this while holding American, Azerbaijani, and, it also appears, Russian citizenship until at least 2005” [28] Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Baku under the slogan "Return the money stolen from the people", to demonstrate against corruption and tax fraud committed by the country's governing elite.
Mitrev denied wrongdoing and said the payments to his Swiss and Bulgarian accounts were for legitimate consultancy work, and which had happened before he joined the bank's board in London.
[76] In March 2019, the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights issued a new report with recommendations titled "Laundromats: responding to new challenges in the international fight against organised crime, corruption and money laundering".
[77] In July 2018, the PACE decided to expel the Member of the German Bundestag Karin Strenz and also the former CSU politician Eduard Lintner from its buildings for life.
[86] Several media outlets suggested a connection between Viktor Orbán's visit to Baku in June and the first instalment of $7.6 million transferred to the bank account in Jul, since by the end of August Safarov was handed over to Azerbaijan.
[87][88][89][90][91][92] Hungary's foreign minister Péter Szijjártó said he hopes the "international and national inquiries into the stories uncover what exactly happened because as long as the truth is not known, all kinds of defamatory statements can be made by everyone without consequence.
"[93] The Milan prosecutor's office charged Luca Volontè, the former head of the European People's Party faction in the PACE, with corruption and money laundering.
[98] In January 2022, Sweden’s Economic Crime Authority charged her with gross fraud, enabling money laundering with references, among others, to the Russian and Azerbaijani Laundromats.
[104] In the course of a government crackdown on limited partnerships to fight UK money laundering, the NCA froze several bank accounts linked to the Azerbaijani laundromat.
[106] Izzat Khanim Javad (a cousin of Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev and a London DJ under the name Mikaela Jav) and her husband Suleyman Javadov agreed to forfeit £4 million in funds received from the Laundromat to the NCA.
[107][108][109] In November 2021, the NCA filed proceedings to freeze and seize £15 million in bank accounts belonging to the wife, son, and nephew of Javanshir Feyziyev, a high-ranking Azerbaijani politician.
[117] An Azerbaijani woman living in Houston and working for a SOCAR affiliate also pleaded guilty to having acted "as an agent for Azerbaijan without registering with federal officials".