TASHKENT -- The son-in-law of Uzbekistan’s president is building a secretive multimillion-dollar residential compound in a pricey district of this Central Asian capital, a project for which some two dozen homes have been razed, an investigation by RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service has found.
Multiple sources familiar with the project say Otabek Umarov, who serves as deputy head of security for his father-in-law, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev, pressured residents to move to make way for the development on 1.5 hectares of prime Tashkent real estate with an estimated value of some $20 million.
The project is the latest example of Umarov’s access to significant wealth that stands seemingly at odds with the official salary he draws as a public servant.
Mirziyoev assumed the presidency pledging greater transparency and reforms in Central Asia’s most populous country following the 2016 death of his dictatorial predecessor, Islam Karimov. But multiple RFE/RL investigations have revealed how political insiders, including Mirziyoev’s own relatives, continue to profit in lucrative and opaque state dealings.
Umarov, 40, is the most prominent among these relatives. He is widely seen as a behind-the-scenes power broker among Uzbek political and economic elites in the gas-rich nation of nearly 37 million. And while he has no known official income streams beyond his state job, Umarov regularly flaunts his expensive tastes on social media, including luxury watches and cars.
The compound under construction in Tashkent’s northeastern Mirzo Ulugbek district comprises at least 20 properties adjacent to a residential property where Umarov previously lived with Mirziyoev’s youngest daughter, Shahnoza, whom he married in 2007, and their children.
Since 2018, at least 20 homes surrounding that property have been razed, forming an ever-widening, unified land plot where cement trucks and other construction equipment are operating, historical satellite imagery reviewed by RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service shows.
One former city official with direct knowledge of the matter said Umarov launched his “megaplan” to acquire the surrounding homes around five years ago by making offers to buy from owners who were not in a position to refuse.
“After buying them, he demolished all the houses, each worth half a million and a million and a half [dollars]. Now he is building a palace for himself,” the former official, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fears of retribution, told RFE/RL.
How We Calculated The Price
RFE/RL called multiple Tashkent real estate agents to obtain an estimate of the value of the real estate in the area where the Umarov-linked compound is being built. Based on that, the price per 100 square meters is estimated around $100,000. Satellite imagery shows that the area under construction for the compound is around 1.5 hectares, resulting in a total estimated price of around $15 million. Given that some 20 homes were located at the site, each with a market value ranging from $500,000 to $1 million, the total value of the properties likely exceeds $20 million.
The official’s account is corroborated by historical satellite imagery from the site showing the gradual razing of the homes, and by interviews with relatives of multiple homeowners who moved to make way for the development. The addresses and owners of these homes are known to RFE/RL but are not being disclosed in this report due to security concerns.
One of these relatives said a representative of Umarov had contacted the owners with a “take-it-or-leave-it” offer.
“Many people were forced to exchange their big new houses for older houses half the size in less expensive areas without any additional money,” the relative of a former homeowner said.
RFE/RL was unable to obtain access to paperwork corroborating this claim, though a similar account of the sales process was told by several other sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
While official government land records do not currently identify the owners of the land plots within the planned compound by name, previously available records for some of the plots that RFE/RL obtained do.
These records show that as of June 2022 -- a period when homes at the site were being razed -- the owner of eight of these plots was Uzbek Judo Federation official Zafar Mamajonov, whose personal and business links to Umarov were revealed in a previous RFE/RL investigation.
RFE/RL’s written inquiries about the compound to Umarov, Mamajonov, Mirziyoev’s office, and the Uzbek government’s Anti-Corruption Agency went unanswered as of publication.
The compound linked to Umarov is being built in the Shortepa neighborhood of Tashkent’s northeastern Mirzo Ulugbek district, where high-ranking state officials and wealthy tycoons have made their homes. The site is currently walled off from potential prying public eyes with a tall metallic fence and monitored by surveillance cameras and security guards stationed in booths.
Asked what was being built behind the fence on a recent weekday, one passerby said it was “not allowed” to point at it. When asked why pointing at the compound was forbidden, the passerby said: “It’s the president’s son-in-law.”
A Mosque Runs Through It
On the perimeter of the compound’s site, the only mosque for worshipers in the Shortepa and adjacent neighborhoods has stood since the 1950s.
To enter the mosque, however, worshippers must travel through a long walkway that runs through the development linked to Umarov.
According to multiple sources and visible construction activity, the mosque is now slated to be torn down and a new one erected some 40 meters away.
“It will be completed by the next Ramadan, inshallah. Until then, the old one will work. The old mosque, inshallah, will then be destroyed. We don't know what will happen to its land plot. They’ll probably put a garden there,” a mosque worker said.
The mosque employee declined to say who will take control of the land under the old mosque, which cadastral records show stand on 1,288 square meters -- with a value of around $1 million under current market prices in the area, according to Tashkent real estate agents.
One local resident with knowledge of the matter said “the youngest daughter of our president lives in our neighborhood” and that she and her husband “are building a new mosque on this site.”
“To build a new mosque, they moved the neighborhood council to a two-story building a little farther away,” said the resident, whom RFE/RL is not identifying by name.
Construction is indeed under way at that site, and video footage reviewed by RFE/RL revealed a familiar company involved in the project.
Trucks operating at the site bear the logo of Hyper Partners, a company headed by Khabibula Abdukadyr, whose role in smuggling and money laundering in Central Asia was first revealed in a 2019 joint investigation by RFE/RL, OCCRP, and the independent Kyrgyz outlet Kloop.
A subsequent 2023 investigation by RFE/RL and its partners found that Hyper Partners and other Abdukadyr companies had partnered closely with Mirziyoev’s government on major state-backed projects, while multiple sources said Abdukadyr’s business in the country was backed by Umarov.
A previously listed shareholder of one of these Abdukadyr-linked companies, Hyper Finance Group, was Mamajonov, the judo official and Umarov associate who as recently as 2022 was the listed owner of eight of the land plots where the secretive compound linked to Umarov is being built.
'Why Do You Need Such A Palace?'
Since becoming deputy head of Mirziyoev’s security service in 2016, Umarov has steadily cultivated a celebrity image on social media, most notably as a prominent patron of Uzbek sports. He wears expensive watches and zips around in luxury vehicles, one of his most visible passions. His personal logo adorned the apparel of Uzbek athletes at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
Under a law on civil service enacted by Mirziyoev in 2022, Umarov is among the Uzbek public servants exempted from submitting a declaration on income and property. And those who openly speak about Umarov’s evident wealth and that of other Miriziyoev relatives and their associates have faced legal intimidation, prosecution, and alleged torture.
Among the Mirziyoev critics targeted by authorities is a Tashkent lawyer and blogger who spoke openly about the Umarov-linked compound under construction in the Mirzo Ulugbek district.
In a five-minute video published on YouTube in November 2022, the blogger Shohida Salomova discussed the site of the development, saying Umarov had “recently bought 20 expensive houses.” Salomova gave no other details or evidence for that claim, though her account is consistent with the satellite images and statements of sources who spoke to RFE/RL.
“All these houses are adjacent to the house where he lives. Now all these houses have been demolished. They are digging a huge hole to build a foundation. Apparently, Mr. Umarov's palace will be here,” Salomova said in the video, which has just under 3,200 views in the nearly two years since it was published.
“Why do you need such a palace in the city center, Mr. Umarov? Where did you get so much money? Answer this, Mr. Umarov. I am very interested,” Salomova added.
Exactly a month after the video was posted, on December 18, 2022, Salomova disappeared. Her relatives learned three days later that she had been taken by Tashkent police and was being held in a detention facility.
Salomova, who had also published a post about an alleged extramarital affair by Umarov, was officially accused of online slander against another blogger and Mirziyoev critic who subsequently said authorities were using him to punish her. The second blogger, Aleksei Garshin, called for her release.
A Tashkent court in February 20231 declared Salomova “mentally unstable” and she was sent to a psychiatric hospital. Rights activists have called her a victim of punitive psychiatry.
In January 2024, Salomova was transferred to a psychiatric ward under control of the Uzbek Interior Ministry, which did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
It remains unclear when Salomova might be released or what the current state of her health is.
