‘Mcmafia’ wife ran up £16m bill in 10 years at Harrods
Zamira Hajiyeva’s spending spree included £30,000 on Godiva chocolates and £53,200 in a sandwich bar
THE wife of a convicted Azerbaijani banker spent £30,000 in a day on luxury chocolates during a £16 million spending spree at Harrods.
Zamira Hajiyeva made the payment at the store’s Belgian chocolate outlet Godiva, which provides hampers for £600, along with bespoke gift sets.
Court papers show she spent £1.6 million a year at the shop in Knightsbridge between 2006 and 2016, including £1 million in the toy department and £5.75million at the jewellery designers Boucheron and Cartier.
In one single transaction in the toy department – where toy prams cost almost £500, giant bears £2,500 and a life-sized Winnie the Pooh bear £999 – Mrs Hajiyeva spent £790,000.
Her extravagant spending was revealed after an investigation into the source of her wealth was mounted by the National Crime Agency (NCA), following the conviction of her husband on corruption charges.
Using “Mcmafia” anti-corruption laws – after the BBC television series – which came into force last year, the NCA wanted to establish how the couple could afford to buy an £11.5million Knightsbridge house a few minutes’ walk from Harrods and a £10.5 million golf club in Ascot, Berkshire.
As part of the UK’S first Unexplained Wealth Orders, which were granted against the mother-of-three a judge found she spent more than £16 million in the department store.
On one day alone in 2014, Mrs Hajiyeva, the wife of jailed banker Jahangir Hajiyev, paid a £53,200 bill at the Harrods sandwich bar and furniture concession outlet, which had been opened that year by the British designer Tom Dixon. It is thought the amount was paid to settle an accumulated bill which she had run up at Tom Dixon’s sandiwch outlet over a number of weeks.
Documents released by the High Court yesterday showed that during 2014 she spent a total of £167,000 at Dixon’s furniture and cafe outlet, which boasted that it served “the classic British snack with a refined twist” as well as selling items of his designer furniture.
During her 10-year spending spree, Mrs Hajiyeva, 55, also spent £433,389.79 on Cartier jewellery in one day and paid six-figure sums shopping for fashion brands including Dennis Basso, Celine and Fendi.
She also spent thousands on La Perla and Agent Provocateur lingerie, children’s books, and a “Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo” Disney fairtytale makeover experience for children. Such was her love of luxury designwear that one day in February 2015 she paid a bill of £286,110 for Christian Dior items.
The scale of her spending was laid bare for the first time yesterday following the release of High Court documents linked to the NCA investigation.
The documents list spending by department and do not contain details of individual items bought, so it is possible that goods from one area of the store were paid for in another or could also have been a total bill for purchases over a period of time from that department.
Some of the bigger transactions, including six-figure sums, are not itemised or appear in categories such as “international” or “non-trade services”.
Mrs Hajiyeva’s husband was the chairman of the state-controlled International Bank of Azerbaijan from 2001 until his resignation in 2015, and was sentenced to 15 years in his native country for fraud and embezzlement.
The court ordered him to pay the IBA around $39 million (around £30 million) and confiscated his watch, worth around £50,000, a gold plaque inscribed with his name and position, and a gold coin.
Mrs Hajiyeva, who was granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK in 2015, is also facing extradition to Azerbaijan over allegations of embezzlement.
In a statement Harrods said: “Harrods’ compliance with, and adherence to, the strongest anti-money laundering policies is a fundamental principle of the company’s operations. In this instance, where Harrods cooperated with a wider investigation, there has never been any suggestion that Harrods has operated in any way other than in full compliance with the highest regulatory and legal standards.”