A prominent Conservative donor who helped bankroll Boris Johnson's leadership campaign was today named in the Pandora Papers as allegedly being involved in one of Europe's biggest corruption scandals with the glamorous daughter of the then president of Uzbekistan at its heart.
Mohamed Amersi has given nearly £525,000 to the Tories since 2018 and enjoys access to senior Conservative figures including ministers at the party's most important donors at the party's elite dining club.
Mr Amersi, who denies any wrongdoing, has now been named in leaked documents as being involved in a controversial $220m (£162m) payment to a secretive offshore company in 2010 while working for a Swedish telecoms company.
Telia was later fined $965m (£700m) in a US prosecution and the $220m payment was found to be a bribe for Gulnara Karimova, the eldest daughter of the then president of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov.
Ms Karimova, a former diplomat, businesswoman and pop singer famous for performing a duet with Gérard Depardieu, is now in an Uzbek jail on corruption charges.
Mr Amersi, 61, a lawyer who worked as a consultant for Telia between 2007 and 2013. His lawyers said the offshore company had been 'vetted and approved by Telia' and any claims he made 'improper or illegal payments', or was a conduit to for Telia to do so, were completely false.
The transaction is revealed in a cache of 11.9million files dubbed the Pandora papers, which shine a light on the secret financial affairs of 35 world leaders.
Mohamed Amersi and his Russian partner Nadezhda Rodicheva have between them given £793,000 to the Tory party and senior MPs in recent years. Mr Amersi had been named in today's Pandora Papers as being involved in one of Europe's biggest corruption scandals
Telia, who Mr Amersi worked for as a consultant, was later fined $965m (£700m) in a US prosecution and the $220m payment was found to be a bribe for Gulnara Karimova (pictured), the eldest daughter of the then president of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov
The Kenya-born businessman and his Russian partner Nadezhda Rodicheva have between them given £793,000 to the party and senior MPs in recent years.
Political law expert Gavin Millar QC told the BBC he believes the Conservatives should return the money.
'I think they should give it back… if serious questions are being asked about the donor,' he said, but added: 'The bottom line is they don't have to, and there's nothing in the law or the regulation of our system that compels them to do that'.
Gulnara Karimova is now in an Uzbek prison on alleged corruption charges
According to The Guardian, in the run up to Christmas 2009 Mr Amersi was emailed by a senior Telia executive to speak about 'an urgent job on Uzbekistan'. The Tory donor was working for Telia on its central Asian strategy.
The newspaper claims that emails leaked to them allegedly show Mr Amersi helped Telia executives in negotiations with an associate of Gulnara Karimova.
Karimova, 49, who was once seen as a possible presidential successor to her father, is now in jail on corruption charges.
Before her incarceration in Uzbekistan she was also known as a pop singer and fashion designer, running jewellery and cosmetics businesses and number of charities.
As her alter-ego GooGoosha, she recorded a duet with Gerard Depardieu and had been Uzbekistan's permanent representative in the UN in Geneva and the country's ambassador in Spain.
Lawyers for Mr Amersi said he had 'no reason to suspect' that the intermediary he worked with for Telia was linked to Gulnara.
Mohamed Amersi (left) said the Conservatives would have treated him better if he had a traditional English name and had been to Eton and Oxford. (Pictured right, former Prime Minister Theresa May)
Mr Amersi donated to Boris Johnson's leadership campaign in 2019
Telia reached with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) in 2017 with an record $965m settlement.
The telecoms firm admitted to paying a 'foreign official' – later identified as Gulnara Karimova.
The leaked documents show the Blairs bought the building (pictured) by setting up a UK company to acquire Romanstone
Tony and Cherie Blair avoided paying £312,000 in stamp duty when they bought a £6.45million London office, explosive documents revealed last night.
The disclosure is contained in a leak of offshore papers which exposes hidden wealth and tax avoidance by some of the world's richest and most powerful people.
The ex-Labour prime minister and his barrister wife did not have to pay the tax bill because they bought the offshore firm that owned the property.
Mrs Blair, who runs a law firm and a women's foundation from the four-storey Victorian building, said the sellers had insisted the office be sold in this way.
There is nothing illegal about the transaction, but the deal highlights a loophole that helps wealthy property owners avoid paying a tax that most UK home buyers cannot escape.
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Mr Amersi said when implicated in the cash-for-access row with the Tories earlier this year that he would have been treated better by the party if he had been white.
He said in August the Conservatives would have treated him better if he had a traditional English name and had been to Eton and Oxford.
He has also set up a new foreign affairs network called the Conservative Friends of the Middle East and North Africa (Comena), which he hoped would become an affiliate group of the party.
But he has become embroiled in a dispute with ex-MPs who run the Conservative Middle East Council, even threatening legal action over memos written about his background that claimed he had business ties to Russia.
And at the weekend he made the explosive allegation that party chairman Ben Elliot, whose aunt is the Duchess of Cornwall, had sold him access to Prince Charles.
Mr Amersi revealed that he had been an elite client of Mr Elliot's lifestyle management firm Quintessentially, and as a result had enjoyed a private dinner with the heir to the throne – later becoming a trustee of one of his charities.
He also told how the Conservatives operate a secretive club called the Advisory Board for top donors and that 'one needs to cough up £250,000 per annum or be a friend of Ben' to gain admission.
Mr Amersi told the Daily Mail he believed he had been treated badly by the Tories because of his background.
'I sometimes wonder if I was white and my surname was John Smith and I had been to Eton and Oxford I might have been treated differently. And I think there is some truth in that,' he said.
However he insisted that he loves the party and will continue to donate to it.
He also apologised to Prince Charles. 'My intention was never to embarrass the Royal Family and particularly the Prince of Wales,' he said.
'I have the greatest respect for him and have witnessed his work first-hand round the world.'
There are now calls for the Tories to stop taking money from him. One senior figure said: 'Donor money is being used to buy a position of influence.'
A party spokesman said: 'The Conservative Party is the party of aspiration and opportunity for all, no matter your gender, your ethnicity or where you come from.'
The party board is expected to consider Comena's application for affiliation next month.
Labour chairman Anneliese Dodds said: 'Ministers ... must be beyond reproach, but instead it seems like a six-figure sum can buy you access to their offices.'
However then Tory co-chairman Amanda Milling pointed out that Labour had taken £1.2million from the Unite union in the past year and is seeking cash from billionaires.
She wrote to Miss Dodds: 'The Labour Party runs its own Chair Circle Membership group and the Rose Network whose members can pay a fee to get access to Sir Keir Starmer, yourself, and other senior Shadow Cabinet members.'
The secret offshore wealth of world leaders: Leak of 12 MILLION files reveals Putin 'mistress' owns $4.1m Monaco flat, Azerbaijani ruler's $500m London property deals, King of Jordan's $100m empire and Czech PM's $20m French villas
The secret offshore wealth of more than 300 world leaders, politicians and billionaires has been exposed in one of the biggest ever leaks of financial data.
Dubbed the Pandora Papers, the documents show how 35 current and former world leaders - including associates of Vladimir Putin - used accounts in tax havens to accrue huge amounts of wealth and carry out transactions.
The files consist of 12 million documents from 14 financial services companies in countries including the British Virgin Islands, Panama, Belize, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Switzerland.
They were obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) before being studied by more than 650 reporters from BBC Panorama, the Guardian and more than 100 other news outlets.
They reveal that former British prime minister Mr Blair and his wife Cherie saved some $434,000 (£321,000) in stamp duty when they bought an office in London by purchasing the offshore company that owned it.
Meanwhile Russian President Mr Putin was linked to secret assets in Monaco, while an offshore company owned by his alleged lover purchased a $4.1million apartment below the principality's casino.
The luxury fourth-floor flat was purchased by Brockville Development Ltd, which was eventually traced back to Svetlana Krivonogikh, reported the Guardian.
The woman, who was 28 at the time, is said by Russian investigative outlet Proekt to be the mother of Putin’s child, after giving birth to Elizaveta, or Luiza, in March of the same year.
A luxury fourth-floor flat below Monaco’s casino was bought by Brockville Development Ltd, which was eventually traced back to Svetlana Krivonogikh (pictured), alleged to be a lover of Mr Putin and the mother of his child
The apartment bought by Ms Krivonogikh was in the exclusive Monte Carlo Star apartment complex (pictured)
Ms Krivonogikh is said by Russian investigative outlet Proekt to be the mother of Putin’s child, after giving birth to Elizaveta, or Luiza, in March 2003 (Pictured: Monte Carlo Star apartment complex)
Since becoming friends with Putin, the former cleaner seems to have amassed a luxury portfolio of assets, including a flat in a well-to-do area of St Petersburg, other properties in Moscow and a yacht, coming to a total of $100million - the Kremlin has refused to comment.
Meanwhile, the King of Jordan was able to secretly add £70million worth of property to his portfolios in the UK and US - mainly in Malibu, California and in London and Ascot, the papers showed.
While many of the transactions leaked in the papers - made by tens of thousands of different offshore firms -feature no legal wrongdoing, they expose how the UK Government has failed in its promise to bring in a register of offshore property owners.
There are concerns that some of the purchases could be the work of money laundering - while some of those named now face allegations of corruption and global tax avoidance.
The release of the documents could not have come at a worse time for Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis - who is facing an election later this week - as they show how he failed to declare an offshore investment company used to purchase two villas for $16.2million in the south of France.
The papers follow four other huge data leaks in the past seven years - including the FinCen Files, the Paradise Papers, Panama Papers and LuxLeaks.
They also show how some 95,000 offshore firms were legally set up to secretly by property in Britain.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his family and close associates snapped up more than £400million worth of property in the UK using offshore accounts, the papers revealed.
Dubbed the Pandora Papers, the documents show how Tony (pictured) and Cherie Blair avoided paying stamp duty on their purchase of an office in London. The transaction was not illegal.
While the Blairs' purchase of the London office (pictured) was not illegal, its revelation comes after the former Labour leader has been critical of tax loopholes, once saying that 'the tax system is a haven of scams, perks, City deals and profits'
Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis (pictured ) failed to declare an offshore investment company used to purchase two villas for £12million in the south of France
The chateau and neighbouring villa in Mougins, France, bought by Mr Babis using offshore companies, which he failed to declare,
