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Leaked data on Dubai property owners shows that Ramzan Kadyrov’s cousin, Chechen official Shahruddi Edilgiriev, has become the owner of 4 luxury mansions worth more than $20 million
Little is known publicly about Ramzan Kadyrov’s cousins, the Edilgiriev family. Meanwhile, one of them is wanted in Europe for organizing an attempted murder, the second is the main builder of mosques in Chechnya, and the youngest brother owns a villa in Dubai where Kadyrov spends time.This is what we found out about the Edilgiriev brothers.
The conspirators
In the spring of 2020, three men met in an apartment in Gudermes. Tamerlan Aurbiev, a veteran of the Second Chechen War, Valid Dadakaev, a car dealer from Germany and also an informant for German counterintelligence, and Pakhruddi Edilgiriev, a member of Ramzan Kadyrov’s security staff.
Edilgiriev and Aurbiev had known each other for many years. In the 2000s, while fighting on the side of the separatists, Aurbiev was captured by Chechen forces. Edilgiriev, using his close relationship with Chechen leader Akhmat Kadyrov, helped him avoid punishment. Now he reminded him of the debt — asking him to kill activist and critic of Kadyrov, Muhammad Abdurakhmanov, the brother of the well-known Chechen opposition figure Tumso Abdurakhmanov.
Dadakaev, living in Germany since the early 2000s and having established connections there, was supposed to handle all the organization and documents. Aurbiev — to pull the trigger.
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Tumso Abdurakhmanov told all this to IStories. In 2015, he left Chechnya after a conflict with a relative of Kadyrov, and in 2020, in Sweden, he himself survived an assassination attempt. Having arrived in Germany, Aurbiev did not carry out the order. Instead, he confessed to the Abdurakhmanov brothers that he had been hired to kill them, and then surrendered to the German police. Aurbiev testified and cooperated with the investigation, took his family out of Chechnya, and entered the witness protection program.
After that, Dadakaev was arrested. A Makarov pistol with a silencer was found in his apartment in Schwerin. In 2024, Dadakaev was sentenced to 10 years in prison. German prosecutors claim that the person who ordered the murder is Ramzan Kadyrov’s cousin, Pakhruddi Edilgiriev. He is wanted in the EU, a representative of the German prosecutor’s office told IStories.
It was then that this surname became known outside Chechnya.
Kadyrov’s nominee in the UAE
Pakhruddi is one of the three Edilgiriev brothers. Their mother, Zura, is Akhmat Kadyrov’s sister.
The Edilgirievs are natives of Tsentoroy, Kadyrov’s home village. Each of them is involved in the head of Chechnya’s affairs. Despite their close relationship with Kadyrov, none of them have yet been placed on sanctions lists.
Almost nothing is known about Pakhruddi himself. Der Spiegelcalled him an employee of the Chechen security service; Tumso Abdurakhmanov also says that Edilgiriev works in Kadyrov’s security detail.
Amrudi and Pakhruddi EdilgirievPhoto from social networks
Amrudi is the eldest of the brothers. He has been working with the Kadyrovs since the 90s: for example, Komsomolskaya Pravdawrote that in 1996, during the visit of then-Mufti of Chechnya Akhmat-Khadzhi Kadyrov to Turkey, he was accompanied by Amrudi Edilgiriev — at that time he was a student at the local Seljuk University. Ramzan Kadyrov often mentions Amrudi on his social media. “I sincerely congratulate my dear BROTHER, advisor to the Head of the Chechen Republic, Amrudi Edilgiriev, on his birthday! Amrudi Akhmedovich can rightfully be called a veteran of the team founded by the First President of the Chechen Republic, Hero of Russia Akhmat-Khadzhi Kadyrov,” Kadyrov wrote in March 2023.
Amrudi held various positions in the Chechen government — from the head of the government committee for tourism to advisor to Kadyrov. When Amrudi Edilgiriev was detained in Turkey in 2012 for attempting to smuggle 12 kg of gold, he managed to return to Russia on a diplomatic passport (according to the law, he could obtain it “by decision of the President of the Russian Federation”).
In Chechnya, Edilgiriev’s detention was then called a provocation. “This man cannot be directly involved in smuggling, he is the head of the Mosque-Stroy organization, and I have not heard a single remark [about him] from any resident of Chechnya or spiritual leader, customers, contractors, he is a most decent man,” Chechen Ombudsman Nurdi Nukhazhiev commented on his detention at the time.
As an advisor to Kadyrov, Edilgiriev is indeed responsible for the construction of mosques in the republic. This is a prominent position. Right now, 130 new mosques are being built in the region, and their total number is almost one and a half thousand — that’s approximately one mosque for every thousand residents of Chechnya.
Screenshot: Ramzan Kadyrov’s Instagram page
Edilgiriev oversaw the construction of the Pride of Muslims, opened in 2019 in the city of Shali and accommodating up to 30,000 people. In Chechnya, they claim that this is the largest mosque in Europe. In addition, Edilgiriev supervised the construction of the Heart of Chechnya mosque named after Akhmat Kadyrov, opened in 2008, one of the main attractions of Grozny. Chechen media also refer to Edilgiriev as the head of the Mechet-Stroy company – it was this company that built the Pride of Muslims and the Heart of Chechnya. In 2022, the company’s revenue amounted to more than 875 million rubles, and profit — about 350 million.
At the same time, the company has no government contracts — the money for the construction of the facilities was mainly provided by the Akhmat-Khadzhi Kadyrov Foundation, as Edilgiriev himself stated in early 2019. The Kadyrov Foundation is one of the most secretive non-profit organizations in Russia. It does not publish reports, however, it has been written that it is funded by compulsory deductions from the salaries of Chechen public sector employees and donations from large entrepreneurs from Chechnya. Since 2024, the Kadyrov Foundation has been under sanctions.
Money from the Kadyrov Foundation
How much Chechnya spends on the construction of religious facilities is unknown. Back in 2016, RBK, citing a representative of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia, wrote that all new mosques in Chechnya are built with money from the Kadyrov Foundation. According to the official declaration, in 2023, the foundation’s assets amounted to 5.2 billion rubles. At the same time, the speaker of the Chechen parliament, Magomed Daudov, reported that the foundation spent 31.2 billion rubles on supplying units from Chechnya participating in the war against Ukraine. This amount turned out to be several times greater than all the assets of the organization and even all the taxes collected in Chechnya.
Edilgiriev is the president of the North Caucasian Federal District Judo Federation and builds not only religious facilities, but also sports facilities, for example, the Vladimir Putin Olympic Judo Center.
Shahruddi Edilgiriev is the youngest of the three. For several years he was the general director of the central market of Grozny Berkat. This is the Kadyrovs’ business: since 2009, its co-owner was Shakhmomed Kadyrov — Ramzan Kadyrov’s uncle, and in 2022, Medni Kadyrova, the wife of the head of Chechnya, became the sole owner of the market.
According to leaked data, at least in 2020, Shahruddi received a salary from the Chechen government. His position is unknown, but while congratulating Shahruddi on his birthday in October 2023, Kadyrov noted his contribution to the development of small businesses in Chechnya.
Photo: Ramzan Kadyrov’s VKontakte page
“This is a person I have known very well since childhood. <...> Shahruddi is a representative of a very worthy and respected family in the region and beyond. <...> Shahruddi Akhmedovich is a very responsible, kind, sympathetic, and sincere person who always works with full dedication for the benefit of the republic,” Kadyrov captioned a joint photograph with Edilgiriev.
The unofficial embassy
As revealed by the Dubai Unlocked leak, in December 2022, the younger Edilgiriev became the owner of luxury real estate in Dubai.
What is Dubai Unlocked?
Dubai Unlocked is a global journalistic investigation, in which IStories also participated. It is based on a leak of data on hundreds of thousands of Dubai properties and their owners. Thanks to this leak, it became known that Russian officials, politicians, and individuals involved in criminal cases own tens of millions of dollars worth of real estate in Dubai. Many of these Russian officials did not declare their foreign properties.
He purchased a 1026 sq. m villa on the artificial island of Palm Jumeirah from the developer Zabeel Investments. The villa’s cost is 53 million dirhams, or $14.4 million. The five-bedroom Ottoman-style house is one of the Royal Residences, secluded within the luxurious Zabeel Saray hotel complex.
Previously, the villas were available for rent — for guests seeking “luxury, comfort, and exclusive privacy.” But since 2021, when real estate prices in Dubai soared, the hotel developer put them up for sale.
View of the Jumeirah Zabeel Saray hotel and residential complexPhoto: pisaphotography / Shutterstock.com
Ramzan Kadyrov’s connection to this villa emerged long before his cousin acquired it. According to a 2022 investigation by Ukrainska Pravda, Kadyrov used the villa as an unofficial Chechen embassy from approximately 2014. Turko Daudov, another cousin of Kadyrov and then-representative of the Head of the Chechen Republic in Arab and Muslim countries, stayed at the villa. His diplomatic efforts, as written in a report by the Royal United Services Institute, bore fruit after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, when Middle Eastern countries, unlike Europe and the US, refused to impose sanctions against Russia.
Other individuals close to Kadyrov were also seen at the villa: for example, Zaur Taimaskhanov, a senior officer of the Terek SOBR unit. Kadyrov himself stayed at the villa several times. In 2017, he hosted boxer Mike Tyson there, and also repeatedly met with local businessmen.
On October 19, 2023, two days after Kadyrov congratulated him on his birthday, Shahruddi Edilgiriev acquired three more luxury villas in Dubai, according to Dubai Unlocked. These villas are located on the mainland of Dubai and are worth about $6 million.
Kadyrov has strong ties to the UAE. In 2021–2022 alone, his private jet flew to the country at least 14 times, according to journalists from Ukrainska Pravda. According to FlightRadar24, in 2023–2024, Kadyrov’s jet was in Dubai and the surrounding area at least 4 times.
Kadyrov has repeatedly accompanied Vladimir Putin during his official visits to the UAE. He calls the country’s president, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, his dear brother. Kadyrov’s meetings with senior UAE officials, including the president, appear not as official, but rather as friendly.
Ramzan Kadyrov as part of the Russian delegation in December 2023Photo: kremlin.ru
In 2017, the Zayed Fund for Entrepreneurship and Innovation appeared in Grozny — it was opened by agreement between Kadyrov and the President of the UAE. The foundation was launched in 2017 and plans to allocate about $300 million over 10 years for startup business projects in Chechnya, according to the foundation’s website. For this, a street in the center of Grozny was even named after Sheikh Zayed in 2021. An audit report prepared at the end of last year states that in 2024 the fund invested almost 3 billion rubles, or about $29 million at the current exchange rate, in Russia. At least half went to projects in Chechnya.
The fund directly finances the Kadyrov family’s business, namely IRS Group, founded by Ramzan Kadyrov’s 20-year-old daughter, Tabarik. IRS Group is involved in everything from real estate to retail. Despite Kadyrov's acclaim for Shahruddi’s business endeavors, the face of small business in Chechnya is Tabarik. On the day of IRS Group’s founding, Tabarik signed a financing agreement with the Zayed Fund in the UAE, the amount was not disclosed. IRS Group’s revenue for the first year of operation was 203 million rubles ($2 million), while expenses were only 6 million rubles.
Neither of the Edilgiriev brothers responded to the request from IStories. The press service of the head of Chechnya did not respond either.
