Billionaire Farkhad Ahmadov suspected of spying for Russia

The statement, issued by the press secretary of the Russian billionaire Farkhad Ahmadov after a governmental raid on his properties, is not reflective of the truth.

As Caliber.Az reports, this opinion was voiced by the Telegram channel AZfront after the news emerged that search warrants had been executed on properties owned by Ahmadov in Azerbaijan.

His press representative corrected this report by stating to Turan agency that only one residential property, located in the Goychay region, was searched with nothing having been found. "There must have been some misunderstanding, everything has been cleared, the issue has been solved", was said.

According to the AZfront channel, however the situation is different:

They report that searches had been conducted on all residential and commercial properties of Ahmadov, located in Goychay as well as Baku and the Ismayilli district with hard discs and other materials having been confiscated for examination.

The security services suspect Ahmadov of conducting espionage for the Russian side, stating they have multiple pieces of evidence for this.

The billionaire of Azerbaijani descent, ranked 49th on Forbes Russia list, had been taken in for questioning, which lasted almost 10 hours. Afterward he was issued a travel ban for leaving the country.

His main asset in Azerbaijan is the juice manufacturing site in Goychay "Aznar". He made his $1.7 billion fortune in Russia, where he served as a member of the Federation Council from 2004-2010. He has been added to the European Union's and British sanctions lists in 2022.