Associate of former leader of Azerbaijani exclave constructs large real estate business in Georgia
A Turkish entrepreneur, Emin Uchar, became wealthy in Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, an Azerbaijani area bordered by Iran, Turkey, and Armenia. Recent evidence suggests he may have been close to Vasif Talybov’s family, who governed the region for 27 years before resigning in 2022. In Tbilisi, a restaurant named Dinehall, with the motto “Good food is an inalienable human right,” is located across from the Opera House. Additionally, a five-star hotel supported by the French hospitality company Accor is being constructed nearby.
Vasif Talybov
The Turkish citizen Emin Uchar's Georgian business empire, which officially includes both the hotel and the restaurant, is likely linked to Vasif Talibov's family, who ruled the Azerbaijani exclave for 27 years before suddenly resigning on December 21, 2022, as evidence from OCCRP reveals.
Uchar claimed through his lawyer that his company did not own the Talybov family's assets and that he gained his wealth through loans. Meanwhile, Accor stated that due to their potential connection to the Talybovs, they were reconsidering their partnership with Uchar and his company.
Emin Uchar
Vasif Talibov governed the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic (NAR), often referred to as the “Azerbaijani North Korea”, from December 1995, appointed to the position by the country's president at the time, Heydar Aliyev, his relative by marriage. The exclave, located within Azerbaijan, is separated from the rest of the country by Armenia and borders Iran in the west.
In February 2022, OCCRP uncovered Uchar’s links to the Talybov family, who used their power in Nakhichevan to stifle independent media, imprison dissidents in psychiatric facilities, and mistreat and abuse detainees. Journalists discovered that during their rule, Talybov amassed a substantial fortune, despite an official salary of only $26,000 per year.
OCCRP has found additional evidence suggesting that many of the Talybovs’ assets were likely concealed within the Uchar group of companies, which possesses hotels and other real estate in Georgia, as well as a construction materials firm in Turkey.
The initial businesses in this corporate network were registered in the early 2000s. Since then, the holding, known as Gamigaya in Azerbaijan and Maqro Group in Georgia, has secured numerous government contracts in Azerbaijan.
However, in recent weeks, the Talybovs’ wealth appears to have significantly diminished, with the family leader stepping down as regional leader amidst pressure from the Azerbaijani government.
The ownership of Gamigaya is unclear. A week after Talybov’s resignation, the holding was renamed Arkoz, the same name as another company associated with Uchar.
Human rights organizations have long suspected that the Talibovs controlled Gamigaya. However, information about company owners in Azerbaijan is not publicly available, making it almost impossible to confirm these assumptions. Nonetheless, a former security official from Gamigaya informed OCCRP that he saw Uchar carrying out the Talybovs’ orders.
“He was recently made the head of Gamigaya Holding. Vasif Talibov was in charge of everything,” Nadir Mammadov said in a video call from Germany, after leaving the NAR due to being beaten by the police.
Newly found documents show that Uchar represented the Talybov family’s interests in Georgia. There, he purchased property for Rza Talybov, the son of the former leader of the Nakhichevan Republic, and they also jointly owned multiple businesses.
Rza Talybov is on the left, his brother Seumur is on the right.
Rza did not answer reporters’ queries, and conflicting statements were made by a lawyer from Uchar’s Maqro company and a lawyer for Seymour, Talibov’s youngest son, about the business relationship between Uchar and the family. This suggests that the cooperation is ongoing.
However, Maqro and Uchar’s lawyer denied this claim without hesitation.
“Currently, Mr. Emin Uchar has no business connections with anyone from the Talybov family,” the lawyer stated.
He also mentioned that Uchar had previously worked with Rza Talybov, but chose to end the association during a “reorganization process” that started at the end of 2021. The process accelerated, he said, when OCCRP published an article about the Talybovs in February 2022.
He asserted that it is not possible to provide evidence of collaboration with any document from late 2022.
Since 2012, Azerbaijan has had a law on “commercial secrets,” which means that information about company shareholders is not accessible to journalists and citizens. According to the lawyer, due to this law, he is not authorized to disclose details about the structure of the companies jointly managed by Uchar and Talybov.
The lawyer stated that Uchar never acted as a trustee “in anyone’s business other than his own, neither in the past nor in the present” and always followed the law.
He also added that the funds for the various investments mentioned by OCCRP were bank loans, which Ucar is still repaying.
The development of Uchar
In 2010, the Turkish media reported that “Vasif Talibov trusts him immensely.” However, little is known about how he entered the business and amassed his apparently substantial wealth.
According to a Turkish media source, Emin Uchar began construction in Nakhichevan in 1999.
Turkish corporate documents indicate that in 2001, Ucar co-established a wholesale trading company. In 2004, his name was mentioned in Azerbaijani state media in relation to a “Turkish company” building a school in Nakhichevan. In 2005, he was awarded the Progress medal by President Ilham Aliyev. This honor is given to “entrepreneurs who have distinguished themselves in the implementation of the program of social development of the regions of Azerbaijan.”
According to corporate documents, Uchar first became an official partner of the Talybovs in the group behind Nakhichevan Bank, which was created in April 2008.
Rza Talybov, his mother, and cousin, as well as several other entrepreneurs, were involved in the deal. According to annual reports, by the end of 2017, the majority of the bank’s shares were owned by members of the Talybov family, while Uchar did not have any shares. Recently, the authorities started cracking down on the family, and on January 12, Talybov’s daughter Baharkhanum was removed from the bank’s board of directors.
Maqro’s attorney confirmed that Uchar once had a small part of Nakhichevan Bank’s shares for a while but then left. The entrepreneur didn’t sell his share, but gave it up and got something of equal value in return.
In 2009, Uchar helped start a company called Gemikaya Tourism. That same year, he opened the Blue Regency Hotel in Bakirkoy, Turkey. In 2019, with the help of Accor, the hotel became a four-star Mercure İstanbul Bakırköy.
Expansion in Georgia
In January 2012, Vasif Talybov traveled 420 kilometers north to Batumi on the Black Sea coast of Georgia to explore the area's economic and tourism potential. This is mentioned in a press release from the local authorities. A month later, his oldest son Rza, then 29, bought an old building in the city for $1.5 million.
Power of Attorney giving Uchar the right to buy real estate on behalf of Rza Talybov
OCCRP staff found a document showing the link between Uchar and the Talybovs. It was discovered that Uchar went to Batumi to sign a sale and purchase agreement on Rza’s behalf in 2012.
In June of the same year, Rza gave Uchar a new power of attorney, this time for two months. Uchar acted as his representative and bought over $1.2 million worth of real estate in the neighborhood of an old building, and signed the documents.
“The purchase of real estate by proxy from Mr. Rza Talybov refers to the period when they were business partners,” Maqro’s head of legal department said in an email. He added that it is “completely normal for one partner to turn to the other for help in such matters.”
A month after the deal, a ceremony was held to start construction on the site. The media reported that the work was carried out by the Azerbaijani conglomerate Gamigaya, whose name they wrote as Gemikaya, and Rza was captured in photographs from the event, although his name was not indicated.
Two years later, in 2014, a five-star Divan Suites Batumi hotel opened in buildings bought by Rza. Rza posted a photo from the opening ceremony on Facebook and identified himself as the chairman of Gamigaya Holding, which contradicts reports in the Azerbaijani media, which called the chairman of the Uchar group of companies.
According to documents from Georgia, Rza originally owned the property personally. Corporate records show that in 2014, when the hotel opened, Rza transferred ownership to his local company, Kervan Tourism Ltd. But until 2017, the hotel was listed as an asset on the Gamigaya website, proving Rza’s connection to the company.
When Talybov fell out of favor with the central authorities and eventually lost his post on December 21, Rza put the Divan Suites up for sale for $18 million.
Maqro in Georgia
The first enterprise within Gamigaya opened in Georgia in 2012, it was a furniture factory in Batumi. In 2013, the company operating in the country was renamed Maqro, it worked in various fields, including construction, catering and tourism.
From 2012 to 2016, Maqro purchased $27 million worth of real estate during the time when Uchar and Rza were engaged in a joint business. This provides further proof that Maqro’s investments in Georgia are connected to the Talybovs.
Maqro claimed it had put $270 million into the development of these and two other Georgian projects.
Maqro is the owner of Green Budapest, a residential complex with 350 mid-range apartments near the center of Tbilisi. A bit further from downtown, the Green Diamond, a larger $120 million project, is under construction.
Together with Accor, Maqro is getting ready to open Swissôtel, and in the Old City of Tbilisi, the companies have two more hotels: Mercure, which opened in 2015, and Ibis, which started receiving guests in 2017.
When asked about his partnership with Uchar and his connection to the Talybov family, Accor stated that the company follows strict due diligence procedures (Know Your Counterparty, KYC) before entering into any new hotel projects.
“In this instance, the most recent KYC process took place in 2020 through an international firm (Dow Jones Risks Center), and at that time, there were no concerns. Based on recent reports, we are currently re-evaluating this counterparty and have already requested a new due diligence and further investigation.”
Sandro Kevkhishvili, an anti-corruption expert with human rights group Transparency International, pointed out that investing illicit funds in Azerbaijan also poses a corruption risk for Georgia.
“A person who has amassed wealth through corruption will likely try to utilize similar methods in the country where they invest this money, especially if the country lacks reliable anti-corruption mechanisms and a decision-making system to mitigate such risks,” he mentioned in an interview in Tbilisi. “Georgia does not have these mechanisms.”
Cement and real estate
At the Swissôtel construction site in Tbilisi, evidence of Gamigaya’s Turkish investment is visible: boxes of building materials are covered with red film bearing the Arkoz logo.
Building materials under the Arkoz brand are manufactured at two Turkish factories belonging to Gamigaya Holding. Together, the two productions are valued at more than one hundred million dollars, according to official company information and local government data.
There is no written proof connecting the Talybovs to the factories. However, another Turkish company confirms Uchar’s ties with Rza.
According to registration documents, they jointly established a company in Turkey in 2010, naming it Gemikaya. Rza departed in 2017, according to corporate documents.
There is no public information about what Gemikaya was involved in, but it shares the same name as a company registered in the United Arab Emirates. Gemikaya Real Estate, which held a license for real estate purchase, sale, and rental, was under the ownership of Seymour, Talybov’s youngest son.
Seymour Talybov’s attorney confirmed that his client was a shareholder in a real estate firm in the UAE, but it went bankrupt and closed.
