The daughter of the former dictator of Uzbekistan could have her £40m property empire seized by anti-corruption investigators.
The serious fraud office is seeking to recover assets including a £30m mansion in the Wentworth Estate in Surrey, an £8m Mayfair home and a £2m Belgravia apartment owned by Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Islam Karamov.
While she described herself on her own website as a “poet, mezzo-soprano, designer and exotic Uzbekistan beauty”, Karamova was perhaps better known by the soubriquet of “Robber Baron”, after extorting an estimated £661m in bribes while her father ruled the central Asian nation until his death in 2016.
She was convicted of corruption and placed under house arrest for five years by an Uzbek court in 2015, but is thought to have been incarcerated last year.
An Uzbek court has attempted to seize her assets in the UK, Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden France, Latvia, Malta, Germany, Spain, Russia, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates.
