The son of Vasif Talibov, the former autocratic ruler of Azerbaijan’s autonomous enclave of Nakhchivan, has quietly re-purchased a hotel and another property on Georgia’s Black Sea coast that he sold off during a 2023 crackdown on his father’s regime.
The Divan Suites hotel in Batumi, which has been renamed London 1889, was re-acquired by Rza Talibov for $8.6 million in May, according to a publicly-available share purchase document.
Rza had sold the property in January 2023, three weeks after his father stepped down as Nakhchivan’s ruler amid pressure from the central government in Baku.
Responding to questions from OCCRP via email, Rza said the recent purchase of the hotel — and a separate seaside property slated to host an 11-storey residential development — was funded with loans from Georgian and Azerbaijani banks.
He added that the 2023 sale and subsequent repurchase was a strategy for “divesting assets and investment into other potential targets.”
The Talibov family accumulated substantial wealth during the patriarch’s almost three decades as ruler of Nakhchivan, which ended with his abrupt resignation in December 2022.
The government in Baku never explicitly explained the motivations behind its crackdown on Talibov’s administration, but a statement at the time said Nakhchivan’s new administrator would be instructed to “fight against corruption.”
A 2022 OCCRP investigation revealed that Rza and his brother Seymur received over $20 million in suspicious wire transfers from shell companies. The firms were part of the Azerbaijani and Troika Laundromats, two massive money laundering systems uncovered by OCCRP.
Aside from his investment activities, the 43-year old Rza works as a senior immigration official in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku.
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