New York
One of NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ alleged ‘straw donors’ linked to energy mogul with high-level Russia ties
A New York developer who donated to Adams’ campaign operates a real estate empire that, documents show, is majority-owned by a Cyprus-registered company linked to Uzbek tycoon Bakhtiyor Fazilov.
A New York luxury landlord named among the alleged “straw donors” in the criminal case against Mayor Eric Adams has ties to the Uzbek owner of a billion-dollar energy company once co-owned by a Kremlin-run bank.
The alleged straw donor was named by New York media as Tolib Mansurov, an Uzbek national prominent in the city’s Central Asian community, who appears as the only public director and shareholder of two New York State-registered companies that own millions of dollars of Brooklyn real estate.
In fact, a new investigation reveals, Mansurov’s property firms were, until 2020, majority-owned by a Cyprus-registered company with close links to Uzbek energy and construction tycoon Bakhtiyor Fazilov, who has, in the past, had extensive business dealings with powerful Russian interests.
Last week, President Trump’s Justice Department instructed federal prosecutors to dismiss all charges against Adams, prompting the high-profile resignations of the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan and top Justice Department officials in Washington. On Feb. 17, four of Adams’ deputy mayors resigned, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said she was considering whether to remove Adams from office.
The order was the latest in a series of bombshells rocking New York City politics since a federal grand jury in September indicted the mayor on criminal charges of bribery, conspiracy and soliciting campaign contributions from straw donors – individuals who make illegal political donations on behalf of foreigners or others seeking to hide their identity and exceed donation limits.
While the alleged straw donors in the Adams case were not named, New York news organizations have identified several, including Mansurov, a longtime U.S. resident whose developments dot Brooklyn’s gentrifying areas such as the Crown Heights neighborhood and Fourth Avenue.
But an investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Uzbek Service and UzInvestigations has found that Mansurov’s property business is 51% owned by a Cyprus-registered company, Saltamo Ltd., which is owned by the head of a Cyprus offshore services firm that provides so-called nominees, or stand-ins, to mask the identities of the true owners.
A company owned by the “same natural person” as Saltamo pledged securities to a bank in order to allow Saltamo to take out millions of dollars in loans. The pledging company, Erillico, is 100% owned by Fazilov.
A spokesperson for Fazilov told ICIJ that he had “had no personal involvement in any of the matters you raise.”
In an email to ICIJ, Mansurov said that he had “had no business dealings” with Fazilov.
Fazilov, 49, is chairman and sole owner of Eriell Group, a giant Uzbek energy company formerly based in Moscow that since 2017 has won billions of dollars in state contracts for Uzbekistan’s mammoth natural gas sector. His construction company, Enter Engineering, has erected hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gas, oil and other industrial infrastructure, as well as new tourism sites and an ice hockey arena for Tashkent, the Uzbek capital.
Both Eriell and Enter Engineering have been financed over the past 15 years by Gazprombank whose ownership and management structure have attracted scrutiny for ties to key allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Gazprombank is the financial arm of the majority Russian state-owned energy giant, Gazprom.
Prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Eriell Group counted Gazprombank as a 25% shareholder. Another former shareholder in Eriell, which has since divested, is a former executive of a company owned by billionaire Gennady Timchenko, considered one of Putin’s closest oligarch allies. Both Gazprombank and Timchenko have been placed under Western sanctions since 2022. Fazilov has previously denied any dealings with Timchenko.
“The Eriell Group underwent restructuring in 2022 in response to the war in Ukraine. As such, any references to past relationships are misleading and amount to a cynical attempt to introduce a ‘Russia’ angle into your story. This appears to be a deliberate attempt to manufacture public interest where none exists,” a spokesperson for Fazilov told ICIJ.
Further, Fazilov counts family members of two former high-ranking personnel in Uzbekistan’s notorious security services among his business partners in Russian property and agricultural firms.
One of them, Sharif Inoyatov, is the son of ex-security service chief Rustam Inoyatov, who is widely regarded as one of Uzbekistan’s “grey cardinals,” the shadowy security service players who run the Central Asian country’s economic and political life – and who is reported to be close to the Kremlin.
Mansurov’s ties to Fazilov’s firms and other powerful Uzbek interests, which in turn are tied to powerful Russian interests, provide new insight into the overseas business connections of one of the alleged straw donors to Adams’ 2021 campaign.
“All of Mr Fazilov’s personal and group transactions are conducted to the highest international standards. This means they are reviewed by international banks and lawyers. Any attempt to portray Mr Fazilov’s interests in a negative light would therefore be defamatory,” a spokesperson told ICIJ.
Silk Road
Originally from Samarkand a city along the ancient Silk Road trade route, Mansurov founded his New York luxury renovation company, United Elite Group LLC, in 2012, and his real estate holding Global Industries LLC in 2015.
That same year, a Cyprus-registered company, Saltamo Limited, recorded a 51% interest in Mansurov’s Global Industries, and lent the New York company $400,000.
Saltamo had close ties to Fazilov, then a fast rising energy tycoon. The beneficial owner of Saltamo was a Belize-registered firm that had previously held shares in Eriell, the international energy giant partly owned by Fazilov.
In 2015, Fazilov’s Eriell was 39% owned by Gazprombank, and worked on drilling contracts for Lukoil, the giant Russian oil company, in Iraq, Uzbekistan and the Arctic, along with Gazprom, the state majority-owned energy giant.
The prospects of both Enter Engineering and Eriell soared after strongman Shavkat Mirziyoyev was elected Uzbekistan’s president in late 2016. Fazilov has become one of the most successful businessmen of Mirziyoyev’s “new Uzbekistan” agenda, which has sought expanded diplomatic relationships and a modern, liberalized economy.
Between 2017 and 2022, Eriell says it received $2.3 billion in state contracts as part of Mirziyoyev’s drive to unlock Uzbekistan’s natural gas wealth, building hundreds of kilometers of gas pipeline and drilling hundreds of wells. It did so under a joint venture with Uzbek state gas company Uzbekneftegaz and Russia’s Gazprom.
A loan document filed with the Cyprus authorities in 2019 shows that a Cyprus company owned by Fazilov, Erilico Limited, pledged its accounts to Credit Suisse in order to secure a loan facility for Saltamo.
“Both the customer [Saltamo] and the assignor [Erilico] belong to the same natural person,” the document reads, suggesting that Fazilov was the owner of the Belize company that ultimately owned Saltamo.
Fazilov did not respond to a question about whether he was the beneficial owner of Saltamo.
According to a year-end 2020 financial statement, Saltamo had drawn nearly $21 million in loans from Credit Suisse, which were “secured by a pledge on securities of a related company held with the lending Bank.” Around the same time, the Fazilov-linked Saltamo loaned funds to Mansurov’s New York real estate firm, Global Industries, according to financial records reviewed by ICIJ. Neither Fazilov, nor Mansurov answered ICIJ’s question about whether the funds loaned by Credit Suisse had been used to purchase New York real estate.
Mansurov told ICIJ that all his “transactions have been conducted through respected lawyers in the United States and regulated financial institutions.
“The deals have been thoroughly vetted and, therefore, any suggestion that our activities have been illegitimate would be deeply defamatory.”
Saltamo later reported that, during 2019, its beneficial ownership had switched. The Belize company had transferred its shares in Saltamo to the owner of the Cyprus corporate service provider which acts as secretary to Saltamo, Bahodir Gafurov.
According to a review of corporate filings by ICIJ, Gafurov’s company, Epamina Corporate, currently acts as secretary to 16 Cyprus-registered companies where Fazilov is a beneficial owner. Epamina did not respond to requests for comment.
Gafurov has previously served as a director at Eriell, and in 2022 was reported as the co-founder (49%) together with Fazilov (51%) of a new Uzbek airline, Sam Air. Gafurov is also first vice president of the Hockey Federation of Uzbekistan, where Fazilov is president. Gafurov is listed as a co-owner of a Russian feed plant alongside Fazilov and Sharif Inoyatov.
Mansurov told ICIJ that Gafurov was his business partner, who had invested via his Cyprus company. He did not say who owned the remaining 49% of Global Industries.
“I do work closely with Mr. Fazilov, but the New York property investments you are referring to do not involve him at all,” Gafurov told ICIJ in an email after publication.
In 2020, Global Industries purchased a $13.2 million apartment block in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood, as well as a $8 million site just east of Prospect Park.
In a May 2024 filing, Fazilov’s Erilico reported that its pledge of accounts to secure Saltamo’s loan facility had been transferred to UBS after the latter’s acquisition of Credit Suisse, showing that Fazilov’s company was still providing security for the loans of the company that 51% owns Mansurov’s New York firm.
The Justice Department’s indictment alleges that Adams’ staffers took $10,000 in straw donations from employees of Mansurov on behalf of the developer, referred to as “Businessman-4,” for the 2021 New York mayoral campaign.
I always supported you.
— Tolib Mansurov in a text to Mayor Eric Adams
In return, the indictment alleges, the Adams staffers assisted Mansurov in solving permitting problems involving his Brooklyn real estate and boosting the profile of his Uzbek community charity, the Silk Road Foundation, which he founded in 2023.
Mansurov told ICIJ that he was “unable to comment on the investigation into Mayor Adams.”
The indictment alleges that behind the scenes, Mansurov sought Adams’ assistance in dealing with the city bureaucracy over a site in Crown Heights, which Global Industries had purchased for development for $8 million in 2020.
In particular, Mansurov allegedly asked Adams for help with a 2023 stop-work order for the site, 408 Lefferts Ave., from the city’s Buildings Department.
“I always supported you,” Mansurov texted Adams in February that year. “Having a hard time with DOB [Department of Buildings] … we reached a certain limit that only you can lift.”
A week and a half later, the indictment says Mansurov texted Adams to thank him, saying the “DOB issue” had been “partially resolved.”
The New York City Buildings Department told ICIJ that the stop-work order had first been partially lifted after required technical reports had been filed, and specific technical personnel were found present on site.
The department declined to comment on whether Mayor Adams had contacted officials there about Mansurov’s problems.
The indictment alleges Mansurov asked Adams and his team for assistance in “arranging events celebrating the [Uzbek] national heritage” with city sponsorship after the 2021 New York mayoral election.
Media reports show Adams hosted or attended four events promoting the Silk Road Foundation in 2023 and 2024, a Brooklyn-based community group serving Central Asians, where he endorsed Mansurov as “my brother” and “a leader.” At one event, Adams even cast himself as “the first Uzbek mayor” of New York.
At an Uzbek Independence Day celebration at the city’s iconic Bowling Green park in 2023, Adams declared New York “the Tashkent of America.”
Adams denies the charges laid out in the Justice Department’s indictment, and has remained in office. His attorney did not return ICIJ’s requests for comment.
“Who I am is not in the headlines, it’s in my history,” Adams said on Feb. 11. “As I said from the outset, I never broke the law and I never would.”
Commenting on the Justice Department’s decision to drop the case, Adams’ attorney Alex Spiro said: “As I said from the outset, the mayor is innocent – and he would prevail. Today, he has.”
Update Feb. 19, 2025: This article has been updated with a comment from Bahodir Gafurov.