In an incredible shopping extravaganza, an 11-year-old boy from Azerbaijan bought nine waterfront mansions in Dubai, worth almost $44 million, in just two weeks early last year.
The total price tag is roughly 10,000 years’ worth of salary for the average citizen of Azerbaijan. But the preteen who owns a big chunk of some of Dubai’s priciest real estate seems to be anything but average.
The boy’s name, according to Dubai Land Department records, is Heydar Aliyev, which happens to be the same name as that of the son of Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev. The owner’s date of birth, listed in property records, is also the same as that of Aliyev’s son.
Aliyev’s spokesmen declined to comment on how the president’s son or his namesake managed to came to own mansions on Palm Jumeirah, a luxury real estate development popular with multimillionaire British soccer stars and rich people.
“I have no comment on anything. I am stopping this talk. Goodbye,” the Washington Post quoted spokesman Azer Gasimov, as saying.
Ilham Aliyev’s annual salary as president is the equivalent of $228,000, far short of what is needed to buy even the smallest Palm property. Azerbaijan, a former Soviet republic blessed with plentiful oil and gas reserves, has long had a reputation for corruption.
In addition to recording nine properties owned by Heydar Aliyev, the now-12-year-old schoolboy, Dubai’s Land Department also has files in the names of Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva. President Aliyev has two daughters with the same names and roughly the same ages.
Their exact dates of birth could not be established, but various reports indicate Leyla’s birthday is the same as that of the Azerbaijani woman who figures in the Land Department records.In all, Azerbaijanis with the same names as the president’s three children own real estate in Dubai worth about $75 million.
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