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TeliaSonera secretly associated itself in shady multi billion krona business with dictators through tax havens

Wednesday, 19 September 2012
TeliaSonera, the Scandinavian giant telecoms company, has been exposed to associate itself in shady deals worth billion with dictators in Uzbekistan, a country that has been criticised to have dictatorial rule and press and speech quarantine.

The company in reported by Swedish television to have paid out billions of Krona to a 20 something year old woman so that the company can get obtain the mobile phone licenses in Uzbekistan.
TeliaSonera's links to Uzbek regime Img, Svt ==>
The Swedish television investigative program, "Uppdrag granskning" roughly translated as In-depth Investigation revealed that the woman is very close to the Uzbek dictator's daughter.

In Switzerland, the authorities have launched an unprecedented economic crime investigation in which the woman is at the centre and where a very large sum of money has been frozen suspected to belong to the dictator's daughter, reports Swedish television.

News that TeliaSonera is secretly collaborated with the security services in some of the harshest dictatorships in weak democracies or totalitarian regimes in not new news. Swedish television had earlier shown that the company which is part owned by the Swedish and Finnish states has established cosy relationship with Uzbekistan even though the way thing run in the country is contrary to the democratic principle laid down by the Nordic countries.

Thus telecom giant TeliaSonera, which established in Uzbekistan six years ago has since when released what was called "a local partner." The partner, a Gibraltar-based company, Takilant Ltd, there TeliaSonera has since paid out over Skr2.2 billion in exchange for 3G licenses and phone number serials in Uzbekistan.

The owner of the company which, according TeliaSonera, received the money is a young woman from the fashion world in Uzbekistan, Gayane Avakyan (pictured above, img, Svt). Swedish television says it now shows that she has strong links to the Uzbek dictator's daughter Gulnara Karimova. Avakyan has also become the central figure in a massive economic crime investigation in Switzerland.

TeliaSonera group representatives have repeatedly defended the deal, saying that it carefully examined its local partner - and that this has no connection to the regime. But when the Swedish television examined the situation, Takilant was found to be registered in a tax haven, Gibraltar and then look at the parts of the report that are public, there is no trace of the Skr2.2 billion that TeliaSonera paid in cash and shares.

Swedish television asked Taliasonera why they paid Skr2.2 billion to an offshore company in Gibraltar for a license to be obtained from the Uzbek authorities.

The response was that "they had an asset we needed to conduct our business and we followed the legal process, the formal process in Uzbekistan, where you can not transfer licenses between owners but must return them to the authorities, who then in turn draws them to another operator," says Cecilia Edström, Communication director at Telia Sonera.

She added: "we paid the rightful owner of the licenses so that according to the rule, the licenses then goes back to the authorities who'll then issue it back to us"
By Scancomark.com Team

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