In September of 2017, there was a massive leak of bank records. It became clear that the ruling elite of Azerbaijan ran a slush fund and international money laundering scheme from 2012-2014. They used this fund to bribe several PACE envoys. They created their international money laundering scheme, which is known as the “Azerbaijani Laundromat.”
European financial organizations that supported this money laundering scheme and European politicians who accepted bribes from Azerbaijan are also held responsible for this.
After the story of the laundromat was leaked, Transparency International called upon PACE to hold an independent investigation of countries in the European Parliament accused of vote buying. TI also organized a public campaign where hundreds of people wrote letters to their PACE delegates, encouraging them to promote the independent investigation. After following up on calls to investigate, PACE created an independent investigative body, which published its financial statement in April of 2018. There were several violations of conduct and corruption scandals in the report.
Facts and doubts regarding 8 countries were presented during the investigation. The countries are Armenia, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, Monaco, Montenegro, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. TI was unable to conduct a thorough investigation of these new allegations due to limited time and resources.
On June 28th, Transparency International appealed to the new president of PACE, Liliane Maury Pasquier, requesting that PACE further extend the mandate of the investigative body to continue looking at the allegations against these countries.
