Sahdy deals cloud gas and judo in the Mirziyoyev circle

Despite the president's flaunted anti-corruption campaigns, an affair of extremely lucrative contracts benefiting a company linked to his family has come to light in Tashkent. With his son-in-law Umarov at the centre, the 'grey eminence' of a power system ranging from big business to the world of sport.

Tashkent (AsiaNews) - An investigation by Radio Ozodlik, reported by several other media, has revealed the affairs of an almost unknown company linked to the family of the president of Uzbekistan, Šavkat Mirziyoyev, which has made secret agreements with the state for over 100 million dollars, above all a multi-million dollar contract to deliver gas to one of the country's main cement companies at a premium.

The extremely profitable deal for the marginal Ultimo Group Limited suggests that the people involved, especially Mirziyoyev's relatives, receive very substantial dividends thanks to their relationships with high-level politicians.

Last year, the president himself had entrusted the bodies concerned with the task of eradicating corruption in the energy and fuel sector, repeatedly asking for maximum transparency and to stop the practice of bribery once and for all.

Uzbekistan, the most populous country in Central Asia with over 37 million inhabitants, has large gas reserves, and since he succeeded the first historic president, the authoritarian Islam Karimov who died in 2016, Mirziyoyev never misses an opportunity to reiterate that "we no longer have the right to carry on as before, we must guarantee the development and well-being of the entire population".

Yet Ozodlik's investigation shows how the very opaque Ultimo Group contract was granted in 2021, with the sale to the then state-owned main cement producer Qizilqumsement for a sum of over million. And it was the first gas sale of the little-known company.

The documents revealed by the investigation show how 66 million dollars were transferred to the presidential family's company from the monopolist UzTransGaz, and that the company imported billions of cubic meters from neighboring Turkmenistan.

The transaction was carried out with a network of partners that is not easy to reconstruct, which extends from New York to Hong Kong, passing through Dubai. The central figure in the whole scheme is Azizžon Kamilov, head of the judo federation in Uzbekistan and vice-president of the national Olympic committee, very close to Otabek Umarov, the president's son-in-law and high-ranking state official, very active in the sports sector.

Umarov is often referred to as the "gray eminence" of the power system at the top of Uzbekistan, which according to the latest reports by Transparency International remains "an authoritarian state with a high level of corruption, nepotism and abuse of power", while acknowledging "some progress" in Mirziyoyev's latest reforms. Umarov's public image in recent years has been his personal brand 7Saber, which produces sports uniforms for national teams, marketed by Ultimo Group.

The company under investigation, founded in March 2021 with a capital of 9,500 dollars, is almost a ghost and does not have an official website, nor any form of public presentation, and one of the people indicated by the documents among the main owners is a elderly pensioner who had never been involved in business.

Only one of the shareholders, Tukhfat Anvarkhužaev, responded to journalists by denying any relationship with Umarov, with whom he claims there are only "cordial relations, but not economic relations".

Kamilov and Umarov are two very popular characters in Uzbekistan, who show themselves at competitions and in many other events by being photographed together with the "figurehead" Anvarkhužaev.

The investigation revealed many other ambiguous relationships of the characters involved, with Arab emirs and American fixers, often using the cover of the Olympic Committee and sporting events. The ideal of transparency of Mirziyoyev's "new Uzbekistan" still appears rather far from realization.

• Uzbekistan
• Tashkent
• Mirziyoyev
• corruption
• Umarov
• sport