Eldiyar Arykbaev (OCCRP), Firuzi Mahmadali (Azda TV), Mukhamadzhon Kabirov (Azda TV) A leak has revealed that elite housing in Dubai is popular among the political elite of Tajikistan. The grandson of President Emomali Rahmon purchased a three-bedroom apartment on the coast of the metropolis, valued at 1.3 million dollars. According to documents, at the time […]
Eldiyar Arykbaev (OCCRP), Firuzi Mahmadali (Azda TV), Mukhamadzhon Kabirov (Azda TV)
A leak has revealed that elite housing in Dubai is popular among the political elite of Tajikistan. The grandson of President Emomali Rahmon purchased a three-bedroom apartment on the coast of the metropolis, valued at 1.3 million dollars.
According to documents, at the time of the purchase of the luxury property, the boy was only nine years old.
This investigation is part of the Dubai Unlocked project, based on leaks containing information about hundreds of thousands of property owners in Dubai.
The Dubai Unlocked project is based on several leaks that provided a detailed overview of hundreds of thousands of properties in Dubai, as well as information about their owners or tenants. Most of the data we received is dated 2020 and 2022.
The documents were obtained by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) — a Washington-based nonprofit organization that investigates international crimes and conflicts. It shared the information with the Norwegian financial publication E24 and OCCRP, which coordinated the investigation with the participation of several dozen partners from around the world.
We obtained information about the official owners of each property: their date of birth, passport number, and nationality. In some cases, the documents listed tenant information instead of owners.
Journalists used the obtained data as a starting point for the investigation. They spent several months verifying personal details in the leaked documents and the current status of each property through official and open sources, as well as through other leaks.
The leak does not clarify how much the grandson of the President of Tajikistan, Eradzhon Gulov, who is now 18 years old, paid for the purchase of the 210-square-meter apartment located on the famous Palm Jumeirah archipelago. However, calculations based on the size of the apartment and current real estate prices in Dubai indicate that the residence is now worth over 1.3 million dollars. According to records from the Dubai Land Department, it still belongs to Eradzhon Gulov and is used to generate rental income of 55,000 dollars per year.
It is unclear whether his parents’ income at the time could cover the cost of the apartment. At the time of purchase, his mother, Parvina Rahmonova, had no known source of income. According to the Tajikistan government website, her husband, Ashrafjon Gulov, was the head of the consular service of the Tajikistan embassy in Moscow. He previously headed the Tax Committee of Tajikistan’s inspection for large taxpayers.
In Tajikistan, officials are not required to report their salaries and taxes, however, in the list of vacancies published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2022, the highest salary for a deputy department head is only 200 dollars a month.
“The salary of Ashraf Gulov in his diplomatic position would not allow him to buy real estate in Dubai for 1.3 million dollars,” says Edward Lemon, an expert on Central Asia and a lecturer at Texas A&M University.
Photo: InternetAshraf Gulov (left) shakes hands with the President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Photo: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Tajikistan
However, in 2015, Rahmonova and Gulov were noticeably different from the average Tajik family. Ashrafjon’s father, Sherali Gulov, is another representative of the country’s political elite: from 2006 to 2013, he served as the Minister of Energy and Industry of Tajikistan. By that time, Parvina’s father, Emomali Rahmon, had already been leading the country for more than twenty years. Human rights activists describe his regime as one of the most corrupt and nepotistic in Central Asia.
The 2015 Freedom House report states that Rahmon’s entourage “receives preferences based on nepotism and clannishness.” The document notes that “government positions, especially those related to taxes or trade, are particularly popular.”
Eradzhon Gulov and his parents did not respond to requests for comment.
According to UAE law from 1985, children aged 7 to 18 can own real estate only with the permission of a legal guardian.
It is unclear from the leak who acted as Gulov’s guardian in the purchase of the apartment in Tanzanite Residence, however, the property transfer documents list the email address of Sukhrab Mirzoaliyev, a former employee of the Tajik Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He did not respond to a request for comment.
As Colin Powers, a senior researcher and editor-in-chief of the non-profit research organization Noria MENA Program, states, selling real estate to minors is one of many mechanisms that Dubai uses to bypass regulators and attract capital.
According to Powers, for the wealthy, purchasing foreign assets in the names of children is a way to disguise illegal income or reduce taxes in their home country.
“This is just another tool that global elites use to hide and invest money in the real estate market,” he explains. “I don’t think it’s smart. It’s not that hard to figure out that someone is someone’s grandchild or child. But it does add to the workload.”
Journalists from Azda TV have identified several more representatives of the Tajik elite among the owners of real estate in Dubai, including the wife of Prime Minister Kohir Rasulzoda, the current head of the local Interpol bureau Shahriyor Nazriyev, and relatives of Rahmon.
All in the Family
Many relatives of the 72-year-old leader of Tajikistan, who has nine children, have received high positions in the government and financial sector. His daughter Ozoda heads the presidential administration, while Zarina is the deputy chair of the board of the largest commercial bank in the country, Orienbank.
The president’s son Rustam Emomali is the mayor of Dushanbe and the chairman of the National Council (the upper house of parliament). In this position, he becomes an official contender for the presidency.
Parvina Rahmonova and Ashrafjon Gulov are less in the public eye than other family members. In an interview with the state newspaper “Tajiks of Russia,” published in 2014 by the independent news portal Asia-Plus, Gulov stated that he arrived in Moscow not because of family connections, and his appointment does not diminish the merits of the Russian consulate, which is considered “one of the most challenging areas in the foreign policy activities of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan.”
“If I really got this position because of nepotism, then why wasn’t I given a more ‘quiet’ and ‘lucrative’ place?” he said.
Gulov arrived in Moscow just after Russia tightened migration processes for Tajik citizens living and working in the country. Russian policy forced tens of thousands of Tajik migrants to obtain expensive biometric passports—sometimes through intermediaries who promised to expedite the process for an additional fee. In an interview for “Tajiks of Russia,” published in Asia-Plus, Gulov acknowledged the presence of “intermediaries,” but assured that his staff does not interact with them, and otherwise he would take “measures.”
After Moscow, Gulov worked briefly at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan, and from 2021 to 2024, he served as ambassador to Turkey. By that time, his wife had started a business and founded a pharmaceutical company, Sifat Pharma, which has several white-pink stores in Dushanbe. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she won numerous government tenders for the supply of ventilators and other medical goods. According to Radio Free Europe, since its founding in 2017, Sifat Pharma has received contracts worth several million dollars from the government.
As ambassador, Gulov organized webinars on Tajik-Turkish medical partnerships and facilitated the arrival of Turkish entrepreneurs, resulting in Sifat’s subsidiary signing a deal with the Turkish equipment manufacturer Dundarlar.
Gulov owns several properties in Dushanbe. OCCRP and Azda TV discovered several real estate properties registered in Gulov’s name, including a premises at the address of the main office of the International Bank of Tajikistan.
In August 2024, Gulov was appointed ambassador of Tajikistan to the UAE.