Above: President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev speaks during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland January 2018. Credit: Reuters / Denis Balibouse

Some of the money that passed through the Azerbaijani Laundromat, a secret money laundering scheme and slush fund that saw €2.5 billion (US$ 2.9 billion) flow out of the country between 2012 and 2014, ended up in the hands of a purportedly private Azerbaijani organization that hired a Virginia firm to lobby the US government for more than a decade.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has earlier reported that other monies from the fund were used to advance the Azerbaijani government’s political agenda, with some ending up in bank accounts belonging to European politicians who spoke highly of President Ilham Aliyev’s regime even as it arrested journalists and political activists. The precise origins of the funds are unknown, hidden behind secretive shell companies. But there is ample evidence that the authoritarian country’s ruling elite is behind them.

Now, a new investigation shows how a series of transfers from two shell companies at the heart of the Laundromat – which have no real owners or directors – funneled over a million and a half dollars to a mysterious Baku-based organization called Renaissance Associates. This group, in turn, engaged a US lobbying firm to orchestrate praise for Azerbaijan and had its representatives make thousands of dollars in campaign donations, including to Senators and Representatives who sat on committees that determine foreign aid budgets.

At the core of both the European and US lobbying efforts is the same man – Elkhan Suleymanov, an Azerbaijani parliamentarian who Italian prosecutors say is responsible for implementing an aggressive plan to improve the country’s image called “Azerbaijan 2020: Smile Future,” initiated in late 2011 by President Ilham Aliyev.

Suleymanov runs a pro-regime organization in Baku which appears to work hand-in-hand with Renaissance, even using the same office space. But since there is no formal connection between Renaissance and Suleymanov, or anyone else in the Azerbaijani government, the scheme allows the US lobbying firm it employs to avoid disclosing the relationship under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), as those representing the interests of foreign governments are required to do.

Other payments were made to an influential oil and gas consultant with close ties to President Aliyev who presents himself as an immigration success story and lives in Dayton Ohio — even as he also lobbies the US government on his homeland’s behalf. (See: Baku’s Man in America)

An Azerbaijani Renaissance

The Payments The transfers received by Renaissance were made to two separate bank accounts: One with Volksbank AG in Liechtenstein, the other with Privatbank IHAG Zürich AG in Switzerland. The listed reasons for the payments are uninformative, reading “to the contract” and “for equipment.” Contacted by reporters, Privatbank IHAG said that its anti-money-laundering policies are designed to ensure compliance with all applicable laws and rules; Volksbank did not respond to requests for comment.

According to records from the Azerbaijani Laundromat, two offshore shell companies at the heart of the scheme — Metastar Invest and Hilux Services — made 18 payments totaling US$ 1,655,649 to Renaissance Associates S.A between September 2012 and December 2014.

Renaissance is allegedly a “consortium of businessmen, educators and investors” based in Baku, Azerbaijan with offices in Zug, Switzerland. Its purported goal is to help “promote [Azerbaijan’s] image in the United States by publicizing its continuing commitment to democratic principles and a more civil society since its independence in 1991.”

But further details about the organization are scant. It has no website and no contact information, and its “consortium” has no publicly disclosed membership. For the past 14 years, its only apparent activity has been its relationship with Bob Lawrence & Associates (BL&A), a lobbying firm in Alexandria, Virginia.

Renaissance is BL&A’s sole international client. Quarterly lobbying reports filed by the firm show that, between July 2012 and December 2015, its income from Renaissance totalled $1,533,000 — close to the amount that Renaissance itself received from the Laundromat around this time, according to available data.

Furthermore, the final four of the Laundromat payments to Renaissance match closely with the sums the group spent on BL&A lobbying in four of the five subsequent quarters (see infographic).

Credit: Edin Pasovic / OCCRP Four Laundromat transfers to Renaissance closely match subsequent quarterly payments the organization made to its Virignia-based lobbying partner, BL&A. Click to enlarge.

Since first registering as a lobbyist for Renaissance in March 2004, BL&A has worked steadily on issues of interest to the Azerbaijan government. In 2006, the firm reportedly handled the logistics of President Aliyev’s visit to the White House. Three years later, it arranged for Obama’s former campaign manager, David Plouffe, to visit Baku and speak to members of the Azerbaijani government.

According to its lobbying reports, BL&A’s specific lobbying issues have included US defense appropriations in the region; the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is disputed between Azerbaijan and Armenia; and a critical oil pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey that lies nearby.

Between 2008 and 2016, BL&A’s president Bob Lawrence was annually invited to recommend foreign aid budgets to Azerbaijan and Armenia before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Matters.

His testimonies frequently emphasized Azerbaijan’s oil and gas resources and infrastructure as “critical to the security and wellbeing of the people of Europe” and have repeatedly called for the elimination of Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which bans direct US aid to the Azerbaijani government.

He also informed the subcommittee that Armenia, Azerbaijan’s regional rival, is a “rogue nation […] clearly protecting criminals” and that it commits human rights violations. He is much more forgiving of Azerbaijan. Though admitting in his first testimony that “8 or 9 journalists have been beaten or jailed,” he asserts that “President Aliyev pardoned most of these.”

Lobbying for Lobbyists

Lobbying disclosure reports also show that BL&A’s collaboration with Renaissance included subcontracting other US lobbying firms on its behalf. For example, between July 2012 and December 2015, BL&A paid at least $250,000 to the Crane Group to lobby the US Senate and House of Representatives on “state and foreign relations” and to provide “assistance to Azerbaijan.”

Over the same period, BL&A spent $280,000 contracting former Congressman Solomon Ortiz (D-TX) through his firm, Solomon P Ortiz Holdings LLC, to lobby on “strategic relations” between the US and Azerbaijan. Six weeks after this work began in 2012, he wrote a glowing blog post on Azerbaijan in the Huffington Post. Ortiz also has a long history of promoting Azerbaijan’s interests in Capitol Hill. In 2004 he co-founded the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus, a group of legislators coordinated by Laundromat recipient Baguirov (See: Baku’s Man in America).

One of Ortiz’s long-time advisors, John McGregor, was also involved in the caucus’s development. McGregor joined BL&A as a consultant in 2005 and lobbied the US government on behalf of Renaissance as recently as 2016 through his own company, the McGregor Group.

Between 2012 and 2015, individuals registered as lobbyists acting directly or indirectly on behalf of Renaissance made thousands of dollars in donations to political candidates, including to Senators and Representatives who were sitting on, or chaired, appropriations subcommittees at the time.