£400,000 of jewellery seized from auctioneer

JEWELLERY WORTH more than £400,000 has been seized from Christie’s auction house by the National Crime Agency over suspicions about how the items were purchased.

The 49 items of jewellery were originally bought in upmarket St Moritz in Switzerland in 2008 by jailed Azerbaijani banking fraudster Jahangir Hajiyev for 320,000 euro, the NCA said.

Mr Hajiyev’s wife Zamira Hajiyeva is the subject of the UK’s first Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO) and the jewellery was being valued for her daughter by Christie’s before they were seized.

The valuables, which include a Boucheron necklace worth up to £120,000, were seized on Tuesday, and a judge on Thursday allowed the NCA to hold the items for six months as it investigates.

“It is the view of the NCA that the source of the funds to purchase the jewellery requires further investigation,” the agency said. The world-renowned Christie’s co-operated with the investigation after receiving a request for information about the jewellery from the NCA.

“Christie’s confirms that the National Crime Agency seized items,” the auction house said.

Mr Hajiyeva, who allegedly purchased the jewellery, was the chairman of the state-controlled International Bank of Azerbaijan from 2001 until his resignation in 2015. He was later jailed for 15 years for fraud and embezzlement.