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On May 16, an article published on the Radio Ozodi website stated that experts from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which is part of the Dubai Unlock Project, found some documents showing that About Ikbolkhon Nozirova (Ikhbolkhon Nazirova) real estate supply in Dubai), wife of Tajik Prime Minister Kohler Rasulzoda.
The day after the publication, on May 17, a letter signed by the “Secretariat of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Tajikistan” was sent to Radio Ozodi via an email address apparently belonging to the Prime Minister of the Republic of Tajikistan, stating: “Regarding the material of Radio Ozodi published on social networks on May 16, 2024, we inform you that the information contained in the material about a villa allegedly belonging to the wife of the Prime Minister of Tajikistan has no basis in reality and does not correspond to reality.”
In response, Radio Ozodi sent a letter to the email, asking for confirmation that it belongs to the Secretariat of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Tajikistan. So far, the request has remained unanswered.
On May 27, OCCRP published on its website Full survey Ozodi reprinted this thread with permission from the survey author.
Eldia Alekbayev (OCCRP）
turquoise WellpModel （perhaps television）
MuhAmazon Kabirov （perhaps television）
The Tajik prime minister and his wife, Ikbolkhon Nozirova, did not answer questions from investigators about how the latter was able to buy several luxury properties in Tajikistan and the United Arab Emirates.
The source of income for the wife of the Prime Minister of Tajikistan is unknown, and her husband, as a senior government official, is prohibited from engaging in business activities. However, Ikbolkhon or Ikboloy Nozirova, who owns several properties in Tajikistan, bought a property in Dubai worth about $1.4 million.
The source of the couple’s wealth remains a mystery, as with many others in this authoritarian Central Asian country with no free media, where President Emomali Rahmon has ruled for the past three decades, doing everything he can to protect his power and silence critics and opposition to the government.
However, the investigative team of OCCRP Europe and Azda TV got hold of data on foreigners’ real estate in Dubai. These materials appeared due to a massive data leak of real estate in the UAE. Their experts determined that Ikbolkhon Nozirova owned four apartments and a hotel in the Sughd region (which her husband Kohil Rasulzoda headed from 2006 to 2013), as well as a house in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.
And now, leaked property ownership data shows that Nazirova has also purchased two villas in Dubai, the largest city in the UAE. However, there is no documentation to suggest that Nazirova has ever held a high-paying position or owned a profitable company. Her husband, Kohir Rasulzoda, has been a government official for 24 years, which, we repeat, means that he is prohibited from engaging in business activities under Tajik law.
Edward Lemon, head of the Washington Oxus Institute think tank specializing in Central Asian issues, linked all these facts to the high level of corruption in Tajikistan. According to him, the post of Prime Minister of Tajikistan is purely symbolic, and Rasulzoda does not receive a high official salary for this post, so the survey data shows that the couple has a good relationship with the “kleptocratic” regime, and Rasulzoda used his political position to accumulate personal wealth and support the family’s various business interests.
“Rasulzoda has held several government positions, but he seems to have few personal ambitions in Tajikistan’s deeply authoritarian political system. So I think that’s why he was chosen as prime minister,” said Edward Lemon.
There is no evidence that Rasulzoda or Nazirova were involved in any money scams or corruption scandals. They did not respond to requests for comment on the sources of their income and wealth.
From the Silk Road to the Persian Gulf
Vatan Hotel is located in Khujand, the administrative center of the Sughd region of Tajikistan, from where goods were transported to Europe along the Silk Road many centuries ago. The hotel rents rooms to guests in the “Northern Capital”. Both short-term and long-term.
Khujand is now the second largest city in what the World Bank calls Central Asia’s poorest country.
Founded during the Persian Empire some 2,500 years ago, Khujand is a far cry from the elite neighborhoods and skyscrapers that have sprung up on Dubai’s sandy beaches in the past few decades.
The wife of the Prime Minister of Tajikistan turned out to be the owner of two two-storey villas in Dubai, according to documents uncovered by the Dubai Unlocked project. Ikbolkhon Nozirova’s villas are located 200 metres apart in MiraOasis III, a gated luxury community with an amphitheatre, basketball court, mosque, dog park, swimming pool, volleyball court and landscaped trails.
The first villa has an area of 284 square meters and cost $737,700, and has several bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as a separate maid’s quarters. The second villa has an area of 270 square meters and cost $699,800, also with several bedrooms. Apparently, both villas were purchased with the participation of the Prime Minister’s daughter, fashion designer Farangiz Azimova – she left her phone number as contact information when purchasing the property.
Farangiz also owns a villa in The Meadows, a gated community in downtown Dubai that is surrounded by an artificial lake. In 2011, the 24-year-old purchased a two-story mansion worth more than $5.4 million, records show.
Farangiz holds Russian citizenship but apparently lives in Dubai with her husband, businessman Zafar Azimov, son of former Tajik Prime Minister Yahya Azimov. Azimov Jr. is the owner of a private company with investments in manufacturing, real estate and healthcare in Tajikistan, Russia and the United States.
Judging from Farangiz’s Instagram photos, the couple often travels and enjoys a luxurious lifestyle in different countries, including France, the United Kingdom, Austria and the Czech Republic.
“The most honest minister”
In the case of Farangiz Azimova, it can be assumed that she could afford such luxurious real estate through her husband’s business income, but there is no information about her mother’s source of income.
Ikhbolkhon Nazirova (Ikbolkhon Nozirova) is not registered as an entrepreneur with the Tajik Tax Committee – a prerequisite for running a small business in the country. According to the Unified Register of Legal Entities, which covers data up to 2018, she does not own any company. In the past, Nazirova served as the head of the Palace of Culture in Khujand, but there is no information on whether she works in the private sector.
Nazirova received almost no media coverage in Tajikistan, which Human Rights Watch called “a country where independent and critical voices are repressed.” But investigators did find something. Kohir Rasulzoda’s former press secretary, then chairman of the Sughd region, described his wife in a 2015 article praising his boss as “a humble, loving housewife characterized by an uncontrollable desire to create beauty.”
In an article republished online in 2020, he wrote that Nazirova often accompanied her husband on business trips as the region’s chairperson, and recalled their trip to one of Sogd’s cotton-growing districts. “I didn’t expect that the wife of the head of the region would come to pick cotton, and her harvest surprised everyone,” a former employee quoted the chairman of Dehkan Farm in one of Sogd’s districts as saying of Nazirova. “She picked cotton like a machine.”
Until 2000, Rasulzoda worked as the chief engineer and head of the Tajikirsovkhozstroy enterprise in Khujand. In 2000, he entered big politics as the Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources of Tajikistan. He served in this position until 2006. By the way, the former press secretary of the Sughd region, Hukumat, called him “the most honest minister of Tajikistan” in the same article in 2015. In 2007, Rasulzoda was appointed Chairman of the Sughd region and led the region until November 23, 2013. From 2013 to the present, he has been the Prime Minister of the country.
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