The wife of a jailed banker has forfeited her London Knightsbridge home and a golf club in Ascot after spending more than £16 million on shopping trips to Harrods.
Zamira Hajiyeva, 61 whose husband Jahangir Hajiyev, 62, is serving a 16-year jail sentence in Baku for fraud and embezzlement, had been pursued by the National Crime Agency (NCA) over the source of her considerable fortune.
The NCA said it believed her assets were obtained as a “direct result of large-scale fraud and embezzlement, false accounting and money laundering” and in 2018 she became the subject of Britain’s first unexplained wealth order (UWO).
I really do think it’s important that you be convicted of an actual crime before they can come take your stuff.
“What’s all this ‘ere then?” is not sufficient proof.
The Treasury needs that money, though, in order to be able to bang up the ‘far right’ who looted trays of pizza from Greggs.
So its would be fine for a fraudster (or bank robber, or crime lord etc etc) to just put everything in his wife’s name then, and she can just keep all the loot ready for when he come out?
Someone has been convicted of a crime – the husband. Its not a stretch to consider that his wife’s opulence may not have come from the sweat of her brow. If she had inherited the money from parents, started her own business that made millions, even won the Euromillions lottery, that would be pretty easy to prove. As it is her husband is a convicted fraudster, she’s got millions and she can’t give a reason as how she came by it. I don’t think its unreasonable in those circumstances to say ‘Sorry love, thats not your money, its been nicked, so hand it over’.
’she’s got millions and she can’t give a reason as how she came by it’
So, Jim, you believe in guilty until proven innocent?
The government gets to thieve everyone else’s money just because they say so. Why not this woman too? Think of it as a tax on being suspiciously rich and it’s no worse than a hundred other taxes.
The only thing that is certain here is that the money shouldn’t end up in the hands of the UK govt who can have no legitimate claim to it.
“So, Jim, you believe in guilty until proven innocent?”
So give me an example of how someone can come into the possession of tens of millions of pounds and not have a shred of evidence as to how they came by it, but also somehow actually did come into it legitimately? Because we need such an example if there are to be any victims of this legislation.
I mean if the poster child for your ‘OMG think of the human rights’ argument is the wife of a convicted fraudster who just happens to also have stupendous unexplained wealth, I think you’re on thin ice.
I mean we often on here laugh at the likes of the Grauniad and the BBC for posting examples of the terrible effects of austerity on the poor, examples that usually involve people the size of houses complaining they can’t afford to eat., while sat in front of their massive TVs and playing on their iPhones. This example would be viewed in a similar manner by the average person – ‘Oh how terrible that the wife of a convicted fraudster has had her millions taken away contrary to her human rights!’.
@Jim
You don’t think the onus should be confiscating authority to prove what is being confiscated has been gained by illegal means? Think what that implies. Any money anyone has is liable to be confiscated. The onus is on the possessor of the funds to prove it came from legal means. Can you prove you came by the contents of your wallet legally? Not your wealth in its entirety but those particular coins & notes.
See where you end up?
Wasn’t the chap found guilty in another country ?
If he has not been convicted of a crime here, then there should be no recourse to his ( or her ) property.
’So give me an example of how someone can come into the possession of tens of millions of pounds…’
I don’t need to, I don’t want to take it from her. I just think that those who do should have to prove their case, not her prove hers.
This is why libertarianism is doomed to always be a few semi-autistic types arguing in a corner. It can’t see how it’s rigid ideology looks to ordinary people.
I say again – if the poster child for your argument is a woman like this one then you aren’t going to get much traction for claiming she’s been hard done by.
Can anyone remember that quote about cutting down all the trees to get at the Devil? The issue being that once all the trees were gone the rest of us will have nowhere to hide. I think that it is relevant to this case. I understand Jim’s argument that this woman’s wealth is probably ill gotten to say the least. But if you set the precedent that the authorities can just help themselves to anyone’s cash on suspicion, then you Jim can also have your money confiscated on nothing more than a whim. It isn’t wise to consider this kind of thing to be fine as long as they are only doing it to people that you think deserve it.
@ Stonyground
It was Thomas More talking about laws not trees
@ Tim
The UWO’s Hong Kong predecessor enabled the Governor to clean up the colony which had been plagued by mainland-style corruption. What it does is demand that the accused *explain* where his/her wealth came from, just as I had to explain where the deposit on my son’s house came from (fortunately I have a good memory …).
It seems highly regrettable that the “high-class” (expensive) estate agent involved in selling the house to her so utterly failed to comply with UK anti-money-laundering regulations.
Found it!
William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”
Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”
William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!”
Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
He was sort of using trees as a metaphor for laws, that was how I slightly misremembered it.
bloke in spain: Exactly so. Sure, I have no doubt that some, perhaps most, of her wealth came from her husband’s ill-gotten gains. But how much? Until they can demonstrate and quantify that, they have no right to any of it. Otherwise, as you say, everyone’s wealth is up for grabs.
Yes, it’s thin ice. But it’s still ice.
And it’s not libertarianism. It’s due process of law.
Jim, you apparently have no idea how far down the ladder this state theft can reach. Look up “civil forfeiture” in the US, where the local cops can pull someone over for a traffic stop and just take their cash and other property based on a “reckoning” that it was ill-gotten. No charges, no crime, no court, no jury. The property goes direct to local law enforcement. What could go wrong?
Imagine you stick five hundred quid in your pocket and head off down the road to buy a second hand generator, or something. The cops pull you over and take your cash because you might have just sold drugs or might be going to buy drugs. They keep the money and you have no recourse. That’s it.
It’s far better to permit some Baku Imelda to keep her mysterious shoe collection than it is to normalise this “unexplained wealth order” bullshit. Remember, you’re giving this power to the same cunts you otherwise want thrown out for trampling our rights.
Stoneyground this is the full scene.
https://youtu.be/PDBiLT3LASk?si=Md47AHcweQF11sSL
The thing is, the state isn’t just randomly and unreasonably nicking £500 off someone because they happen to have it on their person when stopped. There is a process here. The authorities have more than reasonable suspicion that this substantial wealth came from criminal activities and it’s more than reasonable to expect the suspect to offer some reasonable explanation of where it came from. It’s not like it’s £10 from a birthday card your Nan gave you. If the money is legit it’s should be trivial to demonstrate that fact and everyone can get on with their day.
“It’s far better to permit some Baku Imelda to keep her mysterious shoe collection than it is to normalise this “unexplained wealth order” bullshit. ”
And then you’ll wonder why every criminal has a family who are millionaires but he mysteriously has nothing.
As we often discuss on here, its all about trade offs. Yes you can have the ideologically pure stance that ‘no-one can have their assets removed even if its blatantly obviously the proceeds of crime’, but that comes with consequences – namely that every criminal will be emboldened to take advantage of it, and you’ll get a lot more of it. Incentives matter, as our host often says……
And we already live in a society where your assets can be taken by the State regardless, one way or another. The State could compulsory purchase them for a pittance if it saw fit, indeed did that not happen to Railtrack shareholders, and arguably Northern Rock? Or it could just tax you into the ground, all entirely legally and above board. So colour me a bit unsympathetic if some foreign grifters get their comeuppance. It makes no difference to me, as the State can already screw me over 6 ways before lunchtime if it so chooses. Ask Donald Trump how that works.
I would add that I know lefties who think that it should be a crime just to have more money than they have decided is too much. If they deem that you have more than you need it is right and proper that the excess should be stolen and redistributed. The fact that they themselves have more than they need and would so obviously be targetted next never enters their daft heads.
The slippery slope may be a fallacy but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. As PJF points out, civil forfeiture in the US is a very long way down that slope and they started out with these sorts of cases in mind.
And as we are seeing, we have just the sort of government that will be happy to play fast and loose with the presumption of innocence.
And the idea that the law is there to protect you is so naive as to be laughable. Did the law protect us during Covid? Did the law protect the Canadian Truckers? Did the law protect Donald Trump? Did the law protect us during Brexit? Did the law protect the Postmasters? Did the law protect those who were given tainted blood? No, the law either studiously looked the other way, or actively worked against the rights of the people and in favour of the State. Because thats the law’s purpose – to protect the State not the people. So to invert Robert Bolt, the law is not there to protect us from the Devil, its to protect the Devil from us.
My view for a lot of these kinds of laws that are based on the dubious concept of “you should have nothing to hide” or “it should be trivially easy for you to prove your activity is legitimate” is to answer : “you first”. Let us test the law first on every MP in the House of Commons, or every Congressman in the U.S. and see if they can account for all of their “wealth”. Then after this “trial period” we can think of rolling this type of law out to the general public.
Eh, Jim. You demolished your argument there.
Slippery Slope
We are already part way with the Anti-money-laundering regulations. If I just said “I’ve worked (usually hard) for fifty years and avoided casinos and the Cote d’Azur and Lamborghinis” I’d be turned down flat.
– The thing is, the state isn’t just randomly and unreasonably nicking £500 off someone because they happen to have it on their person when stopped.
This is exactly what happens in the USA (state dependent, obvs).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United_States
the state isn’t just randomly and unreasonably nicking £500 off someone because they happen to have it on their person when stopped.
I’m pretty sure that is the figure that is the figure at which Brit police start asking you why you’re carrying that amount of money. Or at least it was in the early 2000s Remember it because being in construction, it seemed such a trivial figure. I was in the habit of going around with several thousands. There’s so many things you have to pay cash for.
“The NCA said it believed her assets were obtained as a “direct result of large-scale fraud and embezzlement, false accounting and money laundering”
S.22, Theft Act ’68.
So what you are saying Jim is that injustice is everywhere because the law isn’t being upheld, so let’s just forget about due process, abandon it altogether and let the powers that be do whatever they want because they will do it anyway? Giving the state carte blanch to steal people’s money is fine because they will only apply their powers to bad people who, although we can’t prove it in a court of law, obviously got their money by nefarious means? There is obviously no way they will ever apply their lack of due process to you, no you are perfectly safe from having your assets stolen, after all you’re completely innocent of any wrongdoing you can prove it. Unfortunately they can now bypass your proof because due process is not needed, you said so yourself, so hand it over there’s a good chap.
I think the state should go after gangsters and their wives.
Fraud can destroy lives.
People who support evil men should be punished.
Otherwise the gangster could just.give his ill gotten money to his wife, and she would get wealthy on the back of the evil gangster’s crimes.
Evil people should lose. The state should have the power to go after nasty gangsters and wealthy fraudsters, including those who benefit from the gangsters finances.
«Evil people should lose. The state should have the power to go after nasty gangsters and wealthy fraudsters»
What should happen when the state itself is controlled by evil people?
“So what you are saying Jim is that injustice is everywhere because the law isn’t being upheld, so let’s just forget about due process, abandon it altogether and let the powers that be do whatever they want because they will do it anyway? ”
No, what I’m saying is that if you want to roll back the powers of the State, better start with examples that will get a bit more support from the average voter than the multi-multi-millionaire wife of an embezzler who stole £2.2bn from his employer. There really would be zero f*cks given by the man in the street about the likes of this woman, and painting her a ‘victim of State oppression’ only makes you look out of touch and a bit of a loon. If you’ve got that much money and still can’t find any very expensive accountants and lawyers who can prove you’re as pure as the driven, then the chances that you’re legit are about the same as Elvis being found on the moon.
Apart from which she did get due process. The law is what it is, and she went through the process and it found her guilty. They didn’t just rock up at her bank and say ‘Give us all her money’ and disappear with it now did they? Now you can argue that she shouldn’t have to prove her innocence, but that ship has sailed many years ago in far more unfair ways than that of millionaire wives of fraudsters. I mean how about worrying about strict liability offences, which are effectively even worse, forget being considered guilty until you can prove your innocence, under a SLO you are guilty, end of story. Getting the average person to consider how they might get caught up in one of those is considerably easier than getting them to worry about how they might come by twenty or thirty million quid and not be able to show where it came from.
How does punishing gangsters mean the state us run by evil people?
I have seen a you tube video where a famous celebrity gangster moans about how unfair it is that the US government started using sophisticated laws and cunning techniques to break up the Mafia.
I say good. The state sometimes has to use cunning schemes to break up serious organised crime before it takes over society..
Just like the government has to use cunning techniques to stop terrorism.
Evil people should be defeated. End of story.
I think the state should go after gangsters and their wives.
Starting with the 650 gangsters in the House of Commons, of course.
Jim, you apparently have no idea how far down the ladder this state theft can reach. Look up “civil forfeiture” in the US, where the local cops can pull someone over for a traffic stop and just take their cash and other property based on a “reckoning” that it was ill-gotten. No charges, no crime, no court, no jury. The property goes direct to local law enforcement. What could go wrong?
I assume PJF already knows, but US civil asset forfeiture also leads to the ludicrous situation of inanimate objects being the named defendant.