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's from a country that most of us can't place on a map I think it's important we know her story and Johnny is she is she in prison still I don't know if there's a satisfying story or answer or whatever here but um I'm going to document it and see if there is and if you're watching this that means that I found something my very special guest is a Visionary very talented politically oriented young lady I call her the princess of usbekistan pleasure to be with you tonight one thing don't use that idiotic line dictator's daughter I have a name with which is as simple as yours Natalia Natalia Natalia Natalia hi how's it going hi oh my God my background is a mess you mind if I like quickly clean up behind me do whatever you need to do totally I'm asking myself why am I obsessed with this story that happened 10 years ago it's a good story because it's a tale like no other such a Shakespearean tale having reported and having never had access and having all to the to the people in power because they don't give you access it was just so surreal to suddenly get a Twitter message from Gara karimova don't call me dictator's daughter I have a name just like you do Natalia that message will always sort of stay with me I was fascinated by whatever the hell was going on there the thing that I I'm interested in talking to you about do you remember how you perceived her all those years ago I spent a lot of months looking into the princess usbekistan and I wouldn't be able to do that um without sponsors so I'm going to quickly say thank you to the sponsor of today's video which is betterhelp better help is a platform that makes therapy more accessible to everyone using technology I'm a big believer 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 as I've done it over the last 3 or 4 years with better help you don't need to call around to therapist offices or see if it works with your insurance it's all done online if you sign up and you take a quiz that paints a picture of where you're at mentally what you want to work on how you want to change from there the platform quickly connects you to a therapist in their massive network of tens of thousands of licensed therapists and then you start communicating with your therapist through texting through phone call which is what I do or through video call all of the scheduling is done on the platform and if your therapist isn't a good fit you can switch to a new one our mental health is as important as our physical health so in the same way that we put time into make keeping our bodies healthy we should do the same for our minds betterhelp is on a mission to make that more accessible to people so 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 better help you can try it out at a discount and see if it works you can cancel it anytime thank you better help for sponsoring today's video and with that we're ready to dive back into the story of the princess of usbekistan [Music] Isa currently in jail okay Tom [Music] M the number one Cody mova expert is Chris lasslett chriset have you reached out to himlet hello there hey Johnny how you going how you doing not bad not bad so Gara carova is the daughter of the eldest daughter in fact of is Pakistan's first autocratic president you have these newly formed independent states emerging out of the the rubble of the Soviet Union with these newly minted leaders got one foot in the Soviet tradition and one foot into the future okay beckan in the 9s all these new States emerge out of the reubel and then you have the children of that first generation of [Music] leaders born in the 1970s so in the Soviet Union Fall she's in her 20s you know obviously they had extraordinarily powerful parents all the starter of Islam k the dictator of usbekistan okay her mom is an USC Economist Russian descent currently has two children she was one of the first from that sort of post Soviet generation to go abroad to immerse herself in both Western Europe and North America studies International econ in usbekistan goes to NYC studies jewelry and fashion gets a master's degree okay then Harvard okay gets a PhD quickly another degree this one in telecommunications damn how many degrees does this woman have she was far more than just the daughter of President Islam karimov you know her father who was an appalling dictator but she wasn't just a princess on the side of of things she was uh a part of the system and then she becomes the permanent representative for her country at the United Nations it's kind of a big deal it's like a huge post a couple years later she becomes the ambassador to Spain that speaks to a personality that's extremely driven extremely ambitious but at the same time you know from all those who I've spoken to they also describe someone who was ruthless who who had um visions of grandeur you know she began to intimate that she may indeed be the successor to her father as president of usbekistan and this is where I need to shift because my mind can't go any further unless I better understand usbekistan [Music] first observation usca San is beautiful it's a super landlocked country like it's double landlocked meaning all of the countries that border it are also landlocked there's only one other country in the world that has that situation which is lonstein the micro state next to Switzerland wet keyboard alert stop everything turn the keyboard off dry it off this unfortunately happens more often than i' like to admit this is a very closed regime very unknown very secretive the security services that that that is back equivalent of the KGB controlled a lot of the economy very ruthless Putin esque type of characters my perception of gar and the subsequently work that I did in usbekistan is really Inseparable from from horrendous horrendous human rights violations that were happening at the country at the time this is the government that shot at throwing people dead in the street when they were protesting talking hundreds of people just mowe down the regime that used torture systematically in detention no free media no free speech no free association freedom of assembly none of it okay I want to get back to the princess here because that's what this story is about but at least we have a foundation of what usbekistan is today and that might help us understand what she gets up to next how [Music] dare wow this is wild this is gar and you're watching fashion TV our princess G starts to do everything she launches a jewelry line we have a jewelry collection presenting today you start to see her at all these fashion shows she got a real thrill from having access to very powerful and important people had think I was blessed to have a very good friends from like with artistic talents she has pictures of herself in the background with the clintons it's it's so organized well I I I graduate from Harvard so I know she launches a music career her stage name is so great it's gusa these are good names kind of gets a little bit of traction and like starts making these music videos that are pretty wild I've been watching them she writes a screenplay famous actors to be a part of it movie premier she creates all these NOS heritable work in usbekistan it was impossible to avoid gusa benefits and carpet with a glitterati she's got properties all around the world she's just she's doing all right and crucially there's even talk about her becoming the next leader of usbekistan the SS and if that's the story it might not be that interesting but there's a lot more to it I'm on Wikileaks right now and I'm looking at a document that shows us that g was up to a bunch of 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 successful you are you couldn't have a bigger contrast between the public face of this beautiful glamorous Charming woman and the horror stories that people were telling about her in some ways for many people she was the ultimate symbol of the Injustice that was happening in usbekistan so I love this cable this Cable's so useful for what we're trying to do here while a lot of the world is seeing all of this the American diplomats in usbekistan see through the facade they say that there's this propaganda campaign happening in usbekistan all of these articles being written about Gada they focus on her selfless giving her charitable work her business Acumen and that she might even be the next president of the country she's honest hardworking she's looking out for the best interests of her country but then the Diplomat says all of this likely irks the many business people who have been crushed by her by her greed and then they say that actually she's more like a robber baron pretty juicy quote by the state department pretty spicy she is a greedy power hungry individual who uses her father to crush business people or anyone else who stands in her way I will never forget talking to this businessman he had visible signs of torture on his face from the time he spent in prison in usbekistan and the only reason that he went through this insane torture in jail and and that ruined his life uh completely uh and then led him to multiple suicide attempts long after he was you know out of prison the only reason was Gara because gulnara he had ran a successful business and she wanted to take over and she made sure that she took over and that is not one single story that that story was repeated again and again and again each time you have an obstacle you have an opportunity to think what is right and what is wrong where is black and where is white and you have a moment to decide what uh what's your next step in the early 2000s she divorced her then husband who came from a prominent family in usbekistan that ran lots of businesses specifically in bottling like with Coca-Cola after the divorce the the ex-husband alleges that she used her personal bodyguards to beat him up and then used her power within the government to shut down or take over his family's businesses she immediately began a campaign to eviscerate the Maxi family's joint venture Stak and Coca-Cola and uh she did this by using the courts as her personal legal scissors to cut it up they she he he claims that Gara could write Court decisions and just give it to the judges who would then deliver it because they would have been afraid of what would have happened to them she could get away with it cuz she was the the daughter of of the president and I mean people were frightened of her we have a proverb which says what doesn't 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 usbekistan United States District Court southern district of New York United States of America versus gulnar karimova and bead ahmedov count one conspiracy to violate the foreign corruption Practices Act the defendants engaged in an extensive corrupt bribery scheme in which kin NOA demanded to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes kova solicited and facilitated corrupt bribe payments from the three telecommunication companies and their subsidiaries to Shell companies controlled by Cardin NOA who at the time was an USC government official in exchange for the bribes cardova corruptly used her influence over the USC government to ensure that the three telecommunication companies and their subsidiaries acquired telecommunication licenses which under USC Law could not be purchased or transferred by private entities in total ahmedov and others conspir to make a approximately $866 million in corrupt brive payments to kinova there was a very very very dark sight to her Cova conspired with others to launder the bribed funds from and through bank accounts in the United States in order to promote the ongoing bribery scheme and conceal the proceeds in that scheme from 2001 to 2012 aov conspired with others to pay more than $420 million of bribe to karimova many hundreds of millions flowed into her bank accounts bribes would be distributed through different commercial camouflag 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 associate a a representative in an American company met with Kad NOA in Dubai at the meeting kard NOA threatened to cause problems if they did not give her 20% state in their business for no cost on July 29th 2004 MTS transferred approximately $100 million August 2004 the escrow agent transferred the approximately $100 million bribe 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 a property known as the gors Hill Manor look at this gorgeous house that she bought 17 Acres of garden indoor swimming pool jacuzzi as well as a lake just checking in to tell you that oh God I haven't spoken in a moment um I'm deep in it now and I'm in that point where the next section of the story like what happens like the beginning of this downfall is infinitely more complicated than I was prepared for ttim Moa used other individuals to act as nominee owners and shareholders of shell company C eight Market Muse in London an offshore company affiliated with sent approximately 14 payments totaling $10.5 million subsidiary transferred $20 million $331 million in bribes to kotova in exchange for kotova exercising her influence scooping up everything oil gas telecommunications Logistics manufacturing industry agriculture drug trafficking and elicit Enterprises .2 milon $5 million $80 million $15 million she didn't just run one thing she had her fingers all over the place she was building a big [Music] Empire the picture that all of this paints is that gulnara karimova during this time that we see her being this like fashion icon and this music star is actually during this whole time involved in a massive fraud and Corruption scheme that basically traverses the whole world in the middle of the early 2000s she did some telecommunications degree or something right as she's getting her Bachelor of Arts in telecommunications she's also we know now deeply involved in a giant corruption scheme where she is receiving money from companies in order to give them the licenses to build telecommunication stuff in usbekistan [Laughter] [Music] it's 2012 Gara has built this massive corruption Network around the world she's taking in tons of bribes through all of these shell companies she's using all of these ill-gotten gains to buy really nice homes in England and elsewhere she's continuing Her Image as a fashion and music icon but this is where she starts to make some pretty big errors we can I think pretty definitively say that she overstepped whatever uh whatever lines that they we she was stepping on on people's toes she was making some very powerful people angry a very notorious uh character called ratov who was very close to gara's father and those powerful people were foremost in the security services and the security services are former KGB people and they have very strong links to the Kremlin she pissed him off clearly and he made sure that she was punished they can see that she's expanding and expanding like the universe and it's a zero sum game the more she expands the less they have it's the king and the King's Court people on the inside are allowed to enrich themselves and play their own games and everyone else is just you know a stage for the games that they play the head of the SNB and SNB generals do not like her so if you begin to take on the security services in usbekistan you also take on the Kremlin and that is very difficult thing to do and a very unwise thing to do they we're getting muscled out by this young arrogant upstart she was not easy pickings for them to outmaneuver her meanwhile while gara's Dad is getting old and it's a big question of succession and so they're seeing these very clear hints of her political Ambitions so she's made enemies with the head of the SNB who is connected to the FSB in Russia this is where we see the engineering of gara's downfall the outmaneuvering which begins with gara's right-hand man we saw him back in the doj indictment his name is bead akav he was a young entrepreneurial telecommunications mind who was an expert in the industry expert in how to do the the how to run telecommunications and so was a perfect person to manage her interests okay so amav is like a key figure in this corruption scheme he holds a lot of her Secrets probably what made caram M's rise so so quick was her ambition she was clever she was also quite ruthless to her own people and they were afraid of her and here I'm talking specifically of Beck akov he was under a constant fear that he was going to be arrested by car over and put in prison and suffer a fate um similar to other people who who had crossed her or had been perceived to have crossed her I think he had a young family he was terrified amav then flees to Russia with all of gara's Secrets and this is where we get to a point that we don't know exactly what happens next it gets fuzzy because we don't have solid evidence but the sources I talk to piece together a circumstantial story that implies that 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 they then took those secrets and gave them to a Swedish news Outlet who conducted a thorough investigation into this corruption scheme they found Witnesses within the companies and then they told the World tella was prosecuted over a corrupt telecom's deal The Firm paid $220 million to an offshore company secretly controlled by gulnara karimova the daughter of the then president of usbekistan the American Authority described it as a $220 million bribe so the gigs up for gunara but she doesn't stop [Music] there obviously I was fascinated by whatever the hell was going on there because and it all unraveled as a totally Shakespearean drama gara's social media quickly turns from promoting her fashion career and posting photos of her doing yoga poses to erratic paranoid ramblings aimed at her enemies threatening to reveal all the sturdy Secret secrets of the top brass of the country she was dangerous during that time tension is growing everywhere going home to my father my path was blocked she says she says her dad is being controlled by the SMB that her mom sold out and then she accuses her mom and her sister of turning on her accusing them of Witchcraft she starts using the hashtag SMB thieves continuing to call out the head of the SMB specifically the likely archit of her downfall and she decided to go against them by essentially accusing them of everything that we journalists have long been reporting on the human rights abuses corruption you know all this like horrible things that were happening in those bistan at the same time and this she was very much part of so she was a Loose Cannon and that that almost certainly was another pillar of her downfall and then she starts tweeting at Human Rights activists in journalists and then she got in touch with me to protect her if I could do that because her rights were being abused and suddenly human rights became very important for her when it was her own rights that were threatened she was suddenly positioning herself as someone who was concerned with transparency and media freedom and all these things but this isn't working she's just digging herself deeper and deeper and in fact all of this tweeting gives her enemies in the security services the ammo they need to deal the final blow a detailed portfolio of evidence was given to president kov outlining all the activities of his daughter and the serious impact that it's had on the the reputation of usbekistan and as a result of that his Blessing was given and she just crossed one too many people one too many times and and then that's it and down came down came the ax and then she Bish everyone's like what's happened to Gara one day I get a message and basically it was a HW written letter from her in which she described being under a house arrest and the fact that she could no longer access her father and how she was the prisoner of the um this part of the USBC elad we are held in the house and um basically we can't step outside we kept in the conditions worse than dogs why do you think she chose to communicate with you what was she hoping you would do what she wanted was publicity uh clearly what she wanted was I think she wanted she wanted to win winning this weird power [Music] [Applause] struggle that's why she got in touch uh she was she was fighting for survival and she was you know using me to do that you know it's this astronomical rise and then this rapid downfall you know and and it's very much like that last sequence in Good Fellas where where it suddenly all unravels and like there are helicopters overhead and is's like you know and and and that's exactly kind of what happened last question here what do you think her story can teach us about usbekistan generally as a as a country and as a regime I really think that these days when we truly live in a globalized world and there are lots and lots of pandemics of different sorts happening all the time there are lots of 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 we might not be no to saying and they are often born in places that we're not paying attention to we wouldn't have G and we wouldn't have that regime in usbekistan benefiting and enriching itself so much if it hadn't been the systems that were put in place in countries like the United Kingdom that have allowed oligarchs and foreign thieves to prosper and use their systems we need to be aware how the tools that we built to make our lives better are then used and abused and are subsequently used against us it is really important to pay attention to places that may be off radar because what happens there often comes and hunts us in our own communities far [Music] away I said to myself let me see who I am even all this critical things just to take it through and to see if if this is the reality momy face the [Music] reality [Music]