Karimova’s Cash: Uzbekistan and Switzerland Agree to Further Returns

Five years after Uzbekistan and Switzerland signed a framework agreement paving the way for the restitution of illegally acquired assets worth millions confiscated from Gulnara Karimova, a second installment agreement has been signed. The total of returned funds now stands at $313 million out of more than $800 million frozen in Switzerland alone.

Karimova is the daughter of the late Uzbek President Islam Karimov. An Icarus, she flew far too close to the sun, abusing her position as the dictator’s glamourous daughter to, among other things, extort bribes from international companies trying to break into the Uzbek telecommunications market.

A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable from 2010 characterized Karimova as a “robber baron.” Another cable stated that she was “the single most hated person in the country.”

It wasn’t until 2012 that the scale of Karimova’s corruption exceeded her father’s tolerance. Her machinations spilled into the international consciousness when allegations surfaced on Swedish public television that a shell company tied to Karimova had solicited and received bribes from a Swedish telecom. She was shuffled out of public view by 2014 and put under house arrest by her father’s administration.

Karimova was tried and jailed in 2015, tried again on additional charges in 2020, and remains in jail in Uzbekistan. Abroad, her assets and accounts were frozen and seized. In Switzerland alone, in 2012, authorities froze around 800 million Swiss francs ($842 million) amid various investigations into Karimova’s business dealings. In 2023, an additional Swiss investigation sought the seizure of 440 million more Swiss francs. Other sums were frozen in France, the United States, Sweden, and the Netherlands.

Back in Uzbekistan, the Karimov era came to an end in 2016 with the death of the dictator. While Karimova had been a liability for her father, she presented an opportunity for his successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The new administration began to lobby heavily for the return of Karimova’s frozen assets, arguing that the ill-gotten gains of her corruption should rightfully be returned to the Uzbek state.

But the state that had facilitated her corruption had not been radically transformed overnight, despite Mirziyoyev’s proclamation of a “New Uzbekistan.” While France opted to simply hand over $10 million to Tashkent in 2019, there has been hesitation on the part of countries like Switzerland to simply return the funds wholesale. There needed to be a process, or rather, several interlocking processes, anti-corruption experts argued.

First, the frozen funds had to be legally confiscated following court proceedings in Switzerland. Only then could they be transferred abroad. Swiss authorities insisted on a managed transfer in which the funds would not go directly into Uzbek state coffers, but instead into a United Nations.-managed trust fund to be spent specifically on social programs to benefit the Uzbek people.

A September 2020 agreement between the Swiss and Uzbek authorities set out a framework. In August 2022, the two sides signed an agreement for the return to Uzbekistan of $131 million and the creation of the Uzbekistan Vision 2030 Fund (Ishonch Fund).

An additional agreement reached in February 2025 added approximately $182 million to that pot, bringing the total returned funds to around $313 million.

According to the Ishonch Fund’s website, two projects are currently being implemented with an eye toward achieving Uzbekistan’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The first project focuses on reducing maternal and infant mortality and a second on modern information and communication technology (ICT) education. The first project was allocated $43.5 million in September 2023, according to the fund’s latest annual report.

Although the plodding process of returning Karimova’s assets to the country has been frustrating for Uzbek officials, it will ultimately benefit the Uzbek people to ensure that the millions returned are not stolen again.

Uzbekistan, as noted in another article in this issue, had seen improvements in its score in the well-known Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), put together by Transparency International, since 2012. Tashkent retains an arguably low score, 32 out of 100 (in which 0 means very corrupt and 100 means very clean), and saw a tiny backslide in the 2024 index for the first time in more than a decade. Genuine progress takes time, and is not always linear. The methodical and careful return of Karimova’s ill-gotten gains, and the thoughtful application of those funds to projects that benefit the Uzbek people, presents a tremendous opportunity for the powers-that-be in Tashkent to prove themselves.