The Woman who Robbed $1 BILLION (and almost got away)

I want to introduce you to a

woman

who will surprise you. This

woman

is cunning, ruthless, brutal, easy to underestimate, and even though she is from a country that most of us can't locate on a map, I think it's important that we know her and Johnny's story. She is still in prison. I don't know if there's a satisfying story or an answer or whatever here, but I'm going to document it and see if there is, and if you're watching this, that means I found something very much my own. the special guest is a very talented young visionary with political orientation I call her the princess of usbekistan a pleasure to be with you tonight one thing don't use that line idiot daughter of the dictator I have a name that is as simple as yours Natalia Natalia Natalia Natalia Hello how are you doing?

Hello, my goodness, my background is a mess. Do you mind if I like to quickly clean up behind me. Totally do what you have to do. I wonder why I'm obsessed with this story that happened 10 years ago. It's a good story because it's a story like no other Shakespeare story. Having informed and never having had access and having had access to the people in power because they don't give you access. It was so surreal to suddenly receive a Twitter message from Gara. Karimova, don't call me the dictator's daughter, I have a name just like you, Natalia, that message will always stay with me.

I was fascinated by whatever was happening there, which is what I'm interested in talking to you about. Do you remember how you perceived her all those years ago? I spent many months researching Princess Usbekistan and I couldn't do that without sponsors, so I'll quickly say a big thank you to today's sponsor. video which is betterhelp better help is a platform that makes therapy more accessible to everyone using technology. I firmly believe in therapy as a way to connect with yourself and understand how to be a happier, healthier person in your mind. Therapy has changed my life. like I have done for the last 3 or 4 years with better help, you don't need to call the therapists offices or see if it works with your insurance, it's all done online if you sign up and answer a questionnaire that paints a picture of where If you find yourself mentally, what you want to work on and how you want to change from there, the platform quickly connects you with a therapist in its massive network of tens of thousands of licensed therapists and then you start communicating with your therapist via texting via from a phone call, which is what I do, or via video call, all programming is done on the platform and if your therapist is not a good fit, you can switch to a new one.

Our mental health is just as important as our physical health, so just as we spend time keeping our bodies healthy, we should do the same with our minds. Betterhelp is on a mission to make it more accessible to people, that's why there's a link in my description: it's Betterhelp.com Johny Harris when you click the link you get 10% off your first month of betterhelp. You can try it at a discount and see if it works. You can cancel it at any time. Thank you. Best help by sponsoring today's video and with that we're ready to dive back in. the story of princess of usbekistan Isa currently in jail okay Tom M the number one expert on Cody mova is Chris lasslett chriset have you contacted him?

Hi, hi, Johnny, how's he doing? How he is doing, it's not bad, it's not bad, so Gara Carova is the daughter. of the eldest daughter is in fact the first autocratic president of Pakistan, you have these newly formed independent states emerging from the rubble of the Soviet Union with these newly appointed leaders who have one foot in the Soviet tradition and one foot in the future. In the 9s, all these new states emerge from the uprising and then you have the children of that first generation of leaders born in the 1970s, so in the fall of the Soviet Union she is 20 years old, you know, obviously, they had parents extraordinarily powerful since the beginning of Islam. k, the dictator of usbekistan, okay, his mother is an economist from USC, of ​​Russian descent, she currently has two children, she was one of the first of that type of post-Soviet generation to go abroad to immerse herself in studies from Western Europe and North America.

International economics in usbekistan go to New York study jewelry and fashion get a master's degree okay then Harvard okay get a PhD quickly another degree this one in telecommunications damn how many degrees does this woman have? She was much more than just President Islam Karimov's daughter, you know her father who was an atrocious dictator, but she wasn't just a princess's side of things, she was part of the system and then she becomes the permanent representative of her country in the United Nations, it is something important, it is like a huge position. a couple of years later, she becomes ambassador to Spain, which speaks to an extremely motivated, extremely ambitious personality, but at the same time you know that everyone I've spoken to also describes someone who was ruthless and who had visions of greatness. .

You know, she started hinting that she could be her father's successor as president of Usbekistan and this is where I need to change because my mind can't go any further unless I understand Usbekistan better. First observation. Usca San is beautiful, it is a super landlocked country as if it were double landlocked, which means that all the countries that border it are also landlocked. There is only one other country in the world that has this situation, which is Lonstein, the microstate next to Switzerland. Wet keyboard alert. Stop everything. Turn off the keyboard. Dry it. Unfortunately this happens more often than I would like to admit, this is a very closed regime, very unknown, very secretive, security services which are equivalent to the KGB control much of the economy, very ruthless, type of characters Putin style, my perception of gar and the subsequent work I did in Usbekistan is really inseparable from the horrendous and horrendous human rights violations that were happening in the country at the time.

This is the government that shot and dumped dead people in the street when they were protesting by talking to hundreds of people. simply ending the regime that systematically used torture during detention no free media no freedom of expression no free association freedom of assembly none of that is okay I want to go back to the princess here because that's what this story is about, but at the same time At least we have a basis of what usbekistan is today and that might help us understand what she's going to do next how dare she wow this is wild this is gar and you're watching fashion TV our princess G starts doing everything she launches a jewelry line we have a jewelry collection Introducing today, you start seeing it in all these fashion shows.

She was very excited to have access to very powerful and important people. I thought I was lucky to have very good friends with artistic talents. She has photos of herself in the background. with the Clintons it is very well organized. I graduated from Harvard, so I know she launches a music career. Her stage name is so cool. This is Gusa. These are good names. Somehow they get some traction and start making these music videos that are cute. wild I've been watching them she writes a script famous actors to be part of the movie premiere she creates all these inheritable NOS jobs in usbekistan it was impossible to avoid the benefits of gusa and the carpet with a glitter has properties all over the world just it she's doing well and more importantly there's even talk of her becoming the next leader of Usbekistan, the SS, and if that's the story it may not be that interesting, but there's a lot more to it.

I'm on Wikileaks right now and I'm searching. in a document that shows us that she was doing many other things during this time that had nothing to do with pop music and jewelry design. I think the more obstacles you have, the more success you will have, there couldn't be a greater contrast. between the public face of this beautiful and charming charming woman and the horror stories that people told about her in some way, for many people she was the ultimate symbol of the injustice that was happening in Usbekistan, so I love this cable, This cable is so useful for what we're trying to do here while much of the world watches all of this.

American diplomats in Usbekistan see through the facade. They say there is a propaganda campaign in Usbekistan. All these articles are written about Gada. They focus on her selflessness. giving her charitable work her business acumen and could even be the country's next president, she is honest and hardworking, looking out for the best interests of her country, but then the diplomat says that all this probably irritates many businessmen who have been crushed. by her for her greed and then they say that in reality she is more like a robber baron pretty juicy quote from the state department pretty spicy she is a greedy and power hungry individual who uses her father to crush businessmen or anyone else that gets in your way.

I will never forget talking to this businessman. He had visible signs of torture on her face from the time he spent in prison in Usbekistan and the only reason she went through this crazy torture in prison and it ruined her life completely and then led. led him to multiple suicide attempts long after he was released from prison, the only reason was Gara because he had run a successful business and she wanted to take over and she made sure to take control and that is not a single story that that The story It was repeated over and over again, every time you have an obstacle, you have a chance to think about what is right and what is wrong, where is the black and where is the white, and you have a moment to decide what your next step is at the beginning .

In the 2000s, she divorced her then-husband, who came from a prominent family in Usbekistan that had many businesses specifically bottled as Coca-Cola after her divorce. The ex-husband alleges that she used her personal bodyguard to beat him and then used her. power within the government to shut down or take over her family's businesses, she immediately began a campaign to gut the family's Maxi, Stak and Coca-Cola joint venture, and did so using the courts as her personal legal scissors. to cut it. He claims that Gara could write judicial decisions and simply hand them to judges, who would then hand them over because they would have been afraid of what would have happened to them.

She could get

away

with it because she was the president's daughter. and I want to say that people were afraid of him. We have a proverb that says that what does not kill us always makes us stronger. The Firm paid 220 million dollars to an offshore company secretly controlled by Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the then president of the district of United States of Usbekistan Southern District Court of New York United States of America v. Gulnar Karimova and Bead Ahmedov charge conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act The defendants participated in an extensive corrupt bribery scheme in which relatives NOA demanded to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes Kova solicited and facilitated corrupt bribe payments from the three telecommunications companies and their subsidiaries to Shell companies controlled by Cardin NOA, who at the time was a USC government official, in exchange of bribes.

Cardova corruptly used his influence over the USC government to ensure that the three telecommunications companies and their subsidiaries acquired telecommunications licenses that, under USC law, could not be purchased or transferred by private entities in total ahmedov and others conspired to make approximately $866 million in corrupt payments to Kinova there was a very, very dark spectacle for her Cova conspired with others to launder bribed funds from and through bank accounts in the United States in order to further the bribery scheme ongoing and concealing the proceeds of that scheme from 2001 to 2012 Aov conspired with others to pay more than $420 million in bribes to Karimova many hundreds of millions flowed into his bank accounts.

The bribes would be distributed through different commercial camouflages. Kova caused numerous payments to be made and laundered through multiple bank accounts held in the names of shell companies. The receipt of a telecommunications license and other government benefits in Usbekistan. Representative of an American company met with Kad NOA in Dubai at the meeting. Kard NOA threatened to cause trouble if they did not give the state 20% of their business at no cost on July 29, 2004 MTS transferred approximately $100 million. August 2004 the escrow agent transferred the bribe of approximately $100 million February 2008, Kova sought additional bribes from MTS to pay an additional $30 million in bribes to Kova.

What did Gar do with all this money? An estate known as Gors Hill Manor. Look at this beautiful house she bought. garden indoor pool jacuzzi as well as a lake just checking in to tell you that oh god I haven't spoken in a while. I'm really into this now and I'm at that point where the next section of the story begins. WhichIt just so happens that the beginning of this fall is infinitely more complicated than what I was prepared for. Tim Moa used other individuals to act as nominal owners and shareholders of the shell company C Eight Market Muse in London, an affiliated offshore company to which he sent approximately 14 payments totaling $10.5 million. her subsidiary transferred $20 million $331 million in bribes to Kotova in exchange for Kotova exerting her influence by collecting all oil gas telecommunications Logistics manufacturing industry agriculture drug trafficking and obtaining companies .2 million $5 million $80 million $15 million she not only ran a thing that He had his fingers everywhere where he was building a great Empire.

The picture that all of this paints is that of Gulnara Karimova during this time that we see her. Being this fashion icon and this music star, in reality during all this time she was involved in a massive fraud and corruption scheme that basically goes through everyone. In the mid-early 2000s she earned a bachelor's degree in telecommunications or something while earning her Bachelor of Arts in telecommunications, we also know that she is now deeply involved in a gigantic corruption scheme where she takes money from companies to give them licenses to build telecommunications equipment in Usbekistan. It's 2012. Gara has built this huge network of corruption around the world that she is spanning. tons of bribes through all these shell companies, he's using all these ill-gotten gains to buy really nice houses in England and elsewhere, he continues his image as a fashion and music icon, but this is where he starts committing some pretty big mistakes.

Can I definitely say that she overstepped any line they did, she was stepping on people's toes, she was pissing off some very powerful people, a very notorious character named Ratov who was very close to Gara's father and those powerful people were The most prominent in the security services and the security services are former members of the KGB and have very strong ties to the Kremlin. She clearly angered him and he made sure she was punished. You can see that she is expanding and expanding like the universe and she is a zero. In short, the more it expands, the less they have, it's the king and the people of the King's Court inside are allowed to get rich and play their own games and everyone else is simply a stage for the games they play, the boss The SNB and the SNB generals don't like him, so if you start taking on the security services in Usbekistan, you also take on the Kremlin and that is a very difficult thing to do and a very reckless thing to do. arrogant and upstart young woman, it was not an easy choice for them to overcome while Gara's father is aging and it is a big succession issue, so they are seeing these very clear signs of her political ambitions, which is why she has made an enemy from the head of the SNB, who is connected to the FSB in Russia, this is where we see the engineering of gara's fall, the maneuvers that begin with gara's right hand, we saw it in the indictment of the Department of Justice, his name es bead aka was a young telecom entrepreneurial mind who was an industry expert, expert in how to manage telecom and therefore was a perfect person to manage his interests so amav is like a key figure In this corruption scheme, he keeps many of his secrets, probably what he did to Caram.

M's rise was so fast because of her ambition, she was intelligent, she was also quite ruthless towards her own people and they were afraid of her and here I am talking specifically about Beck Akov, he was under constant fear that he would they will arrest car and imprisoned and suffered a fate similar to that of other people who had crossed her or were perceived to have crossed her. I think he had a young family, he was terrified and then he runs

away

to Russia with all of Gara's secrets and this. It's where we get to a point where we don't know exactly what will happen next.

It gets confusing because we don't have solid evidence, but the sources I speak to piece together a circumstantial story implying that the AAV gave these secrets to the FSB in Russia or someone else in Russia who was aligned with the SMB in Usbekistan, these enemies of gunara and then took those secrets and handed them over to a Swedish media outlet who conducted an exhaustive investigation into this corruption scheme, found witnesses within the companies and then told the world that she was prosecuted for a corrupt telecom deal . The company paid $220 million to an offshore company secretly controlled by Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the then president of Usbekistan, the US authority described it as a $220 million bribe, so the jobs went to Gunara, but She doesn't stop there, obviously, he was fascinated by whatever was going on there because and it all unraveled like a totally Shakespearian drama.

Gara's social media quickly goes from promoting her fashion career and posting photos of her doing yoga poses to erratic paranoid ramblings. directed at her enemies threatening to reveal all the secret secrets of the country's top brass she was dangerous during that time tension is growing everywhere coming home to my father my path was blocked she says says that her father is being controlled by the SMB that her mother sold out to and then accuses her mother and sister of turning against her by accusing them of witchcraft, begins using the hashtag SMB Thieves and continues to call out the head of SMB specifically the likely architect of her downfall and decided to go. against them accusing them of essentially everything that we journalists have been reporting on for a long time about human rights abuses, corruption, you know, all of these are horrible things that were happening in those bistans at the same time and of this she was very much part of it so she was a Loose Cannon and that was

almost

certainly another pillar of her downfall and then she started tweeting at human rights activists at journalists and then contacted me to protect her if I could do it because her rights were being abused and suddenly human rights became very important to her when it was her own rights that were threatened, suddenly she was positioning herself as someone who was concerned about transparency and freedom of the media and all that stuff, but this isn't working, it's just going deeper and deeper and, in fact, everything in this tweet gives his enemies in the security services the ammunition they need to deliver the final blow.

President Kov was given a detailed folder of evidence describing all of his daughter's activities and the serious impact it has had on the reputation of Usbekistan and as a result of that, her Blessing was given and she simply crossed too many people too many times. and then that's it and it came down, the ax came and then she, Bish, everyone says what happened to Gara, one day I get a message and Basically, it was a letter written by HW in which he described being under house arrest and the fact that she could no longer access her father and how she was a prisoner of um this part of the USBC where we are being held in the house. and um, we basically can't go out, we were kept in worse than dog conditions, why do you think she chose to communicate with you?

What did I expect you to do? What she wanted was publicity. Clearly, what she wanted was. I think she wanted to. she wanted to win win this strange power struggle so she got in touch uh she was fighting to survive and she was, you know, using me to do that, you know, it's this astronomical rise and then this rapid fall, you know, and it's a lot like that last sequence in Good Fellas where suddenly everything falls apart and there are helicopters flying overhead and it's like you know and that's exactly what happened last question here, what do you think their story can teach us about Usbekistan in general as a country and as a regime, I really believe that in these days when we really live in a globalized world and there are so many pandemics of different types happening all the time, there are so many viruses and they don't have to be infectious. diseases, right, they are corruption, they are oligarchy, they are authoritarian systems that spread in ways that perhaps we cannot say no and, often, they are born in places that we do not pay attention to, we would not have G and we would not have If the regime of Usbekistan would have benefited and enriched so much if it had not been the systems that were implemented in countries like the UK that have allowed foreign oligarchs and thieves to prosper and use their systems, we must be aware of how The tools we build to improve our Lives are then used and abused and subsequently used against us.

It is very important to pay attention to places that may be under the radar because what happens there often comes and haunts us in our own faraway communities. I told myself, let me see who I am, even all these critical things just to get over it and see if this is reality, mom, face reality.