The First Family of Azerbaijan and a close business partner earned a pretty penny on the 2015 devaluation of the national currency - manat.

This conclusion was made by experts from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

“The transactions were made through three banks: Caspian Development Bank, AtaBank and Pasha Bank, owned by either the Aliyev family; their business partner, Ashraf Kamilov; or both,” believe OCCRP experts.

In late January 2015, Caspian Development Bank provided a USD 52 mln loan to the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) with violations of banking regulations and interests higher than those of the market. When the Central Bank of Azerbaijan depreciated manat against the US dollar in February 2015, the bank earned AZN 13 mln (USD 12.5 mln) from the aforementioned transaction just by the difference in currency rates.

Moreover, Caspian Development Bank earned AZN 39.2 mln more (USD 25.4 mln) in December 2015, when the Central Bank switched to a floating rate for manat.

The OCCRP experts assure that suspicious transactions were carried out in two more banks connected with the Aliyev family - AtaBank and Pasha Bank, which made AZN 61 mln and AZN 35.9 mln profit respectively from the devaluation.

OCCRP is a non-profit international organization including a number of research centres and representatives of independent media from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Armenian Hetq online newspaper is a member of OCCRP as well.