You don't have permission to access the page you requested What is this page?The website you are visiting is protected.For security reasons this page cannot be displayed Get quality reporting directly into your inbox hundreds of millions of dollars from Kyrgyzstan — one of the poorest countries on earth — have poured into bank accounts in Europe and the Middle East on behalf of a single family Much of that money ended up in an expansive real estate portfolio that stretches from the Persian Gulf to the shores of California Click on each country to read more about the properties the Abdukadyrs acquired in Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Dubai That portfolio includes prestigious acquisitions such as a mansion in one of London’s most exclusive neighborhoods and a $1.2 million home near Washington It also includes new real estate development projects like a new 26-floor apartment tower in Dubai But though some of the other projects occupy prime real estate prompting questions about who is behind them is among Khabibula Abdukadyr’s acquisitions “Is there even an investor or an architect anymore?” asked a group of lawmakers from Augsburg about one of the mysteriously inactive construction sites This investigation by RFE/RL’s Radio Azattyk answers that question — and connects the millions behind these investments to a murky enterprise half a world away Last month, the three outlets published an investigation that vaulted Khabibula Abdukadyr a secretive ethnic Uighur tycoon based in Dubai The series of stories revealed that he and his family run an underground Central Asian cargo empire that earned millions by smuggling goods and employing other schemes that depended on corruption in the Kyrgyz customs service Some of the proceeds of this massive operation channelled through the Abdukadyrs’ world-spanning company network ended up in existing properties and new real estate developments it could be sent wherever the Abdukadyrs wanted Saimaiti was murdered in Istanbul last month providing reporters with detailed descriptions of how they made their money and the techniques he used to funnel it abroad He backed his claims with copious documentation including personal spreadsheets and ledgers In total, Saimaiti moved more than $700 million out of Kyrgyzstan over the five years he worked for the Abdukadyr family. He did not provide documentation for that entire amount, but according to a subsequent investigation by the country’s financial police the total figure may be considerably higher Open Democracy and Transparency International UK contributed documentation for this story about the Abdukadyr family’s properties in the United Kingdom The documents he did provide to reporters show that he had sent at least $209 million of the Abdukadyrs’ money to Germany and Dubai — countries where the family was making large real estate investments reporters found at least $75 million in wire transfers to EU bank accounts held in the name of the Abdukadyr family and affiliated companies from 2014 to 2017 Another $31 million was transferred to Bank of America accounts belonging to the family in the United States Of a further $104 million that was wired to Dubai but a portion was also sent to local property developers (The family has considerable real estate assets in the emirate.) These amounts track closely with the numbers disclosed by Kyrgyzstan’s financial police about Saimaiti’s transfers The police report also shows $27 million sent to the Netherlands and $81 million to Latvia this photo shows the four brothers at the heart of the Abdukadyr family business: Alimujiang Hadeer reporters were able to identify at least 20 properties the Abdukadyr family purchased from mansions and city apartments to gleaming hotel towers The family is known to have paid $65 million for real estate but this figure is incomplete because records were not available in all countries and because it does not include the cost of developing the properties which must have amounted to tens of millions more The materials Saimaiti provided also reveal the fraudulent methods he used to send the Abdukadyrs’ money abroad One of these was creating fake loan agreements to provide a cover story for the wire transfers Saimaiti gave reporters what he said was a sham contract stipulating that his Kyrgyz company one of the Abdukadyr family’s main German companies The contract — drafted under German law and dated July 1 2014 — features AKA Petroleum’s corporate stamp and a signature closely resembling that of Khabibula Abdukadyr’s Munich-based representative The family bought real estate worth $44 million in the United Kingdom Saimaiti also provided copies of seven wire-transfer orders totaling $3.7 million he made to AKA Petroleum accounts that specifically reference the sham contract they were made to appear as legitimate payments for goods But the companies that received the money did not appear to be in the textile business Saimaiti personally wired $700,000 to Khabibula Abdukadyr’s German bank account with the reason for the transfer listed as “textile production.” In another he sent $290,000 to a Dubai property developer using an official code for a land plot with the words “for textile” appended at the end The sham loan agreement provided by Saimaiti (left) and a subsequent wire transfer that refers to that agreement (right) show one method the Abdukadyr family used to justify the movement of their money abroad and should have been looked at carefully,” says Graham Barrow a dark money specialist who has advised major banks on how to strengthen their anti-money-laundering practices money launderers do not like to move or invest money through the unstable and corrupt systems that allow them to gain control over it in the first place,” he said “This makes mature Western economies and stable long-term investments like property particularly attractive.” But the investments do little to benefit the countries they arrive in “The long-term effect of dark money … is to distort the market often pricing out the very residents whose presence is required to support the local economy,” he said Neither Abdukadyr nor his business associates have responded to multiple requests for comment its core companies were AKA International and MBL Investments in Dubai AKA Petroleum and AKA Immobilien (now called AKA Group) in Germany and AKA London Trading (now called Miran International) in the United Kingdom Click on each country to read more about the properties the Abdukadyrs acquired in: The construction project across from the fur shop here in Augsburg “There are always new people coming. They work, and then the work is stopped, and it’s littered with garbage. Everyone puts their trash out, and neither the owner nor the architect keeps an eye on this,” Franzmann, a furrier at the venerable Conrad Glock fur and leather shop said in an interview outside the store this September “It’s an eyesore for the city,” added Franzmann mustachioed man who complains that the construction site has driven business away reporters saw a man walking inside the shell of a building Neighbors said only a handful of workers showed up to the site occasionally — though Franzmann said last week that some construction had picked up again the building has become known among locals as the “haunted house.” The Abdukadyrs’ stalled building site in Augsburg in September “Is there even an investor or an architect anymore?” asked a group of Augsburg lawmakers in a February 2018 letter to the mayor about the development the property has been held by the Abdukadyrs’ AKA group of companies In fact, the stalled project is just one of several German developments featured on the group’s now-defunct website They also include a plot of land near Munich and an empty business center in the city that serves as the group’s phantom corporate headquarters The precise scope and value of the family’s properties in the country where real estate ownership and sales records are not publicly accessible But the website also showcased plans and architectural renderings for additional hotel and business developments in several German cities and towns Two of the Abdukadyr family’s main companies — AKA Immobilien (now renamed AKA Group) and its subsidiary AKA Petroleum — are incorporated in Germany According to their most recent financial filings from 2017 though this figure likely includes assets outside Germany appeared to be nothing more than a deserted business center in an industrial park in eastern Munich when reporters visited on a weekday this fall Boxes and construction materials could be seen strewn haphazardly across the ground floor Folding tables and a lonely broken umbrella lay near the dusty main entrance while the courtyard brimmed with weeds and unkempt bushes A small mailbox at the front of the premises listed the names of AKA Immobilien and two other German firms tied to the Abdukadyr network A paper sign taped to the glass door at the main entrance directed visitors to a business center across the street where the names of the four companies were listed next to a doorbell Reporters rang the bell several times but received no answer Repeated calls to the number listed on the paper sign went to an answering machine The calls were returned by the Abdukadyrs’ Munich-based representative He refused to discuss the family’s business and has since declined subsequent interview requests The website of the Munich-based architectural firm Stark Architekten, which has also worked on the Augsburg “haunted house,” describes a proposed $19.2 million renovation of the empty AKA headquarters. It envisions a gleaming, five-star cylindrical glass hotel with 196 rooms — complete with AKA International branding In addition to the Augsburg “haunted house” and the deserted Munich business center the Abdukadyr family purchased a plot of land in Vaterstetten The now-defunct AKA website described the planned development there as a 220-room hotel with an expected completion date of December 2017 A local official in Vaterstetten said representatives of the group had shown plans for the proposed hotel but had never filed any formal paperwork to move the project forward At least two other AKA projects in Germany appear never to have existed at all The group’s website featured a proposed hotel in the German spa town of Bad Vilbel, northeast of Frankfurt. A local official responsible for commercial construction told Immobilien Zeitung in April 2018 that the images associated with the purported development were “a uniquely stupid fantasy product without a plot of land.” “I don’t know anything about such a project so the statement of the city councilman still stands,” Yannick Schwander a spokesman for the Bad Vilbel mayor’s office Another proposed project on the dead AKA site was the development of a hotel in the town of Dietzenbach A spokesman for the local government said that no official planning application had ever been submitted for such a project But if the Abdukadyr family never completed a real estate development in Germany Financial records that Saimaiti provided to reporters indicate that in 2014 and 2015 he wired at least $46 million to accounts held by Abdukadyr and his two main German companies it’s unclear why so many of their German projects appear to be phantoms But even if none of the rest are ever completed they already represent many millions of dollars successfully funneled out of Central Asia commercial thoroughfare in the Ealing district of West London has gained a new lease on life since the 2007 announcement that a new railway It was here that the Abdukadyr family purchased a property known as Dawley House for $28 million in 2016 Once the new rail line starts running in 2021 the property will be just 20 minutes from both central London and Heathrow Airport making it an attractive investment opportunity According to permitting documentation and a defunct website for the Abdukadyrs’ AKA group of companies the family had big plans for the site: A 12-story glass hotel with 113 apartments and fitness center” that would loom over the surrounding area the site has been virtually untouched since the previous building was demolished almost three years ago which was just an empty lot behind a wooden partition and a few padlocked metal gates The Abdukadys bought the property through one of their UK companies show that it received $28 million from two foreign Abdukadyr firms that year and that it used a corresponding amount for a real estate investment These firms — AKA International and Palvan Insaat — were among the recipients of tens of millions of dollars that Saimaiti the self-confessed money launderer who worked for the Abdukadyrs sent out of Kyrgyzstan on the family’s behalf Miran’s financial filings also show that Khabibula Abdukadyr himself loaned the company $2.5 million in 2016. The company gave roughly that amount to his son, Aibibula Nuermaimaiti, as a personal loan. A smaller amount was sent to a Nuermaimaiti company that used it to acquire what is now a well-reviewed Uighur restaurant in North London This establishment appears to be the only Abdukadyr-affiliated entity that demonstrates tangible business activity in the United Kingdom beyond the acquisition of real estate Abdukadyr’s immediate relatives use several last names the members of the family connected to their business network are referred to in this story as the Abdukadyrs because Khabibula Abdukadyr is the head of their empire The Abdukadyrs own at least four other properties in London for which they have paid a total of about $16 million bought a luxury apartment in a building overlooking the Thames River for over $2 million in 2016 a 17-story high-rise in the Wandsworth neighborhood of southwest London But the Abdukadyrs’ crown jewel in the city is a mansion in one of its most exclusive neighborhoods — the leafy private Coombe Park estate in Kingston upon Thames also serves as the registered address of the Abdukadyrs’ business operations in the United Kingdom and two of his sons are listed as the owners of the mansion which the family purchased for $6.8 million in 2015 A brochure for the seven-bedroom home touts the area’s boating as well as its proximity to a variety of international schools and the All England Lawn Tennis Club which hosts the annual Wimbledon tennis championships the brochure says: “Undeniably this is one of the finest homes within a most exclusive road off Kingston Hill.” Download a PDF of ownership records for the properties mentioned in this story The public’s access to the street is blocked by an electric security gate — erected amid controversy in 2008 — that its wealthy residents use a key code to open With additional reporting by Open Democracy and Transparency International UK which provided information about some of the Abdukadyr family’s properties in the United Kingdom Khabibula Abdukadyr extended his business footprint to the United States where he and his family set up a string of shell companies and made two real-estate purchases The former is a four-bedroom, three-bath home north of Los Angeles Two of Abdukadyr’s sons purchased the property in November 2013 for $722,000 (They sold it in August 2019 for $785,000) The other is a house in Great Falls, Virginia, purchased in April 2018 for almost $1.3 million. The two-story brick home was officially bought by AKA Development a company incorporated the year before by Aibibula Yamaimaiti a man several sources have identified as Khabibula Abdukadyr’s son The company is the listed importer of four shipments of construction materials between August 2018 and June 2019, as well as 29 pieces of furniture the Abdukadyrs shipped in October from their Turkish company A visit to the office park where AKA Development is registered revealed that dozens of companies and organizations which run the gamut from solar energy to legal and pet-sitting services The Abdukadyr company had no visible presence in the building the family imported at least two luxury vehicles to the United States A 2011 Lamborghini and 2008 Mercedes-Benz G-Class SUV were shipped in Yamaimaiti’s name to the family’s Virginia home Though the family’s real-estate holdings in the U.S are considerably smaller than in several other countries their U.S.-registered companies did receive substantial wire transfers from abroad courtesy of the self-confessed money launderer The main recipient of the transfers was a company called AKA Energy which was incorporated in Nevada in July 2014 and whose managers have included Abdukadyr The Abdukadyr family registered several other U.S including the Texas-based Palwan Energy and AKA Food and the California-based Nur International Trading North America An internal financial spreadsheet and bank transfer records Saimaiti provided to reporters show that during a six-month stretch in 2014–15 his Kyrgyz company wired $29 million to Bank of America accounts in the name of AKA Energy which has listed a business address in a strip mall in south Las Vegas The documents show the money was sent in 63 separate wire transfers in sums ranging from $100,000 to $800,000 the purpose was described as “debt return” for a contract purportedly concluded on October 2 Download a PDF of ownership records for the properties mentioned in this story and reporters were unable to find any evidence of its business activity The Abdukadyrs have not responded to requests for comment Another $750,000 was sent to Yamaimaiti’s Bank of America account stated that the funds were “for the purchase of a home.” The Abdukadyr family’s business profile is much more prominent in Dubai than in Europe or North America Khabibula Abdukadyr and his relatives used tens of millions of dollars wired from Kyrgyzstan to snap up property and launch development projects in the emirate where they run a company called AKA International (previously known as ABL Hospitality Management) Bank records provided to reporters by Saimaiti he wired at least $104 million to AKA International and Dubai-based property developers on behalf of the family He claimed this was just part of a much larger total though he did not provide records to back up this claim was to fund the family’s real estate investments “I transferred a lot of money from Kyrgyzstan to Dubai for land purposes,” he said a site he called the “Marina” was among the Abdukadyrs’ major developments The now-defunct AKA website once advertised a flagship project called the AKA Marina Hotel & Residences The “iconic new construction development,” just 500 meters from the waterfront is described as a pair of towers — a 23-story hotel and a 60-story apartment building — linked by a “panoramic leisure deck bridge” with an infinity swimming pool The site lists the project as being under “preliminary submission,” though its current status is unclear A rendering of the Abdukadyrs’ planned flagship development from their company’s now-defunct website Two other major projects advertised on the AKA site are in an advanced stage The second major AKA project under construction, called the MBL Residence, is a 45-floor high-end residential building that is part of the massive Jumeirah Lake Towers development The project was advertised on the AKA site as one of the group’s main investments According to a slideshow advertising its features and amenities the tower is a joint venture between AKA International and a multinational Dubai-based conglomerate called the MAG Group A MAG representative said the company did not wish to comment on AKA’s involvement (Matraimov has publicly denied allegations of wrongdoing and did not comment about the Dubai project) Aside from major real estate investment projects the Abdukadyr family has made what appear to be personal purchases in Dubai A leaked database of private property in the emirate contains at least seven properties acquired by the Abdukadyr family and an employee The leaked database of property and residency data was compiled by real estate professionals Though the data does not contain precise purchase dates it does show the properties’ locations and in many cases their prices It covers the period between 2015 and 2017 These properties include four villas in Jumeirah Park for which the family paid a total of just over $5 million These were purchased by Khabibula Abdukadyr Khabibula himself also owns a villa in the nearby Jumeirah Islands development The two apartments — one in a building on the artificial tree-shaped island of Palm Jumeirah and one in a nearby tower called Al Dhafrah — were purchased by one of Khabibula’s sons and by a female relative for a total of $448,000 Wire transfer records provided to reporters by Saimaiti confirm some of the information in the leaked database some of his wires were sent to a major developer in the Dubai real estate market which built all but one of the villas and apartments the Abdukadyrs purchased some of these wire transfers contained alphanumeric designations pointing to specific properties but sometimes with misleading descriptions a September 2014 transfer of $290,000 to Nakheel includes the code “JVC11 YHRG 001C for textile.” Others show “delivery of goods” as the reason for the transactions The codes included in the transfers match the property identifiers included in 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