Inside the Secret Network Behind Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar's Bribery Scandal

[Celerity]

The Daily Beast has connected the dots between indicted Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), an agent of autocratic Azerbaijan, and some of D.C.’s elite dining establishments.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-secret-network-behind-a-democratic-congressmans-bribery-scandal



The Daily Beast has discovered previously unreported details behind the clandestine network that prosecutors say funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX). The network’s sprawling roots stretch from a consulate at the edge of Los Angeles to the glittering capital of a despotic ex-Soviet regime, and from the D.C. foreign aid complex near Foggy Bottom to a hydroponic farm in Maryland that supplied Georgetown’s leading bipartisan hangouts.

The bribery indictment of the Texas congressman describes, among other things, how the congressman allegedly struck a deal for his wife to receive $360,000 in “sham contracts” from the state-owned oil company of autocratic Azerbaijan. The feds say these arrangements ran through an Azerbaijani-born, U.S.-based intermediary—called “Individual-2” in the criminal complaint—and at times through his import-export business, referred to as “U.S. Company-1.” Cuellar and his wife have denied any wrongdoing.

Based on details in the indictment—including that Individual-2 served as Azerbaijani vice consul in L.A. between March 2006 and April 2010, resides in Potomac, Maryland, and formed a shell entity in Texas on August 22, 2017—The Daily Beast can identify Individual-2 as Elshan Baloghlanov, which the The Texas Observer has also reported. And U.S. Company-1—which supplied $30,000 of the alleged bribe money—fits the description of Baloghlanov’s firm, WCC International, as the nonprofit transparency group OpenSecrets has also concluded.

Now, The Daily Beast can reveal that Baloghlanov’s relationships reach deeper than previously reported into the establishments of both D.C. and Baku, where Azerbaijan’s repressive President Ilham Aliyev reigns over an economy enriched by the nation’s vast energy reserves. And those establishments include some favorite haunts of the political elite. According to the indictment, Baloghlanov began the cash transfers to Cuellar’s wife in 2018, and his involvement in the claimed conspiracy lasted into at least 2021. It was at that same time, according to his LinkedIn, that the operative largely exited the import/export sector for a new, trendier venture.

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