Georgia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has charged former Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili with money laundering to the tune of roughly $6.5 million, as part of the high-profile corruption case. He faces up to 12 years in prison and has already confessed his guilt.
The Prosecutor’s Office announced the charges on Friday morning, noting Gharibashvili had ‘fully admitted guilt’. Tbilisi City Court granted him bail soon after.
Unlike government critics detained in previous months, the Prosecutor’s Office did not request pre-trial detention for Gharibashvili. They instead sought bail of ₾1 million ($368,000) for the former prime minister and for his passport to be confiscated and he be barred from leaving the country.
The former prime minister left the court through a side entrance and answered only one question from journalists: whether he had testified against anyone. Gharibashvili said no.
A prominent figure of the ruling Georgian Dream party who departed from politics only in April 2025, Gharibashvili has served twice as Prime Minister — in 2013–2015 and 2021–2024 — and was Defence Minister between 2019 and 2021.
At Friday’s briefing, the Prosecutor’s Office emphasised Gharibashvili’s tenure as Defence Minister and his second term as Prime Minister, noting that, despite legal restrictions, he — as a state and political official — ‘secretly and covertly engaged in various business activities and received particularly large sums of income of illegal origin’.
The Prosecutor’s Office added that, in order to legalise the aforementioned illegal income, he provided false information in the asset declarations submitted in connection with his position, claiming that he received large sums of money annually as gifts from a family member.
‘Through this method, a legitimate origin was artificially created for part of the particularly large amounts obtained from his illegal participation in private business — ₾830,000 ($300,000) — which then entered legal circulation’, they added.
According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, in order to ‘give a legal form to unexplained wealth’, Gharibashvili purchased and registered two cars valued at ₾463,630 ($171,000) in the name of an associate in 2023–2024, and through a family member, acquired 100% of a company for ₾210,000 ($77,000), which owned real estate.
‘In parallel, a total of ₾3,670,172 ($1,352,000) was invested in an LLC registered in the name of his family member’, the statement noted.
Meanwhile, they added that the bulk of the unexplained funds were converted into foreign currency to conceal their true nature and source, resulting in $6.5 million, which was discovered and seized during a search of Gharibashvili’s apartment on 17 October 2025.
Gharibashvili has been charged under the criminal code with money laundering, involving the receipt of particularly large sums of income. The crime carries a prison sentence of 9 to 12 years.
The Prosecutor General’s Office first announced the high-profile investigation last week, which, in addition to Gharibashvili, also involved former State Security Service (SSG) head Grigol Liluashvili and former Prosecutor General Otar Partskhaladze.
Although state agencies periodically released information in recent days about materials seized during the searches and at least two arrests were made related to the case, it remained unclear until now what exactly Gharibashvili was being accused of and for which period.
The Prosecutor General’s Office has not clarified whether the $6.5 million seized from Gharibashvili’s residence was in cash. However, in an earlier statement, the office said that during the searches, $7,002,200 and ₾136,000 were seized from ‘various locations’, all in cash.
The investigation targeting Gharibashvili and others came amidst other investigations and detentions of several former officials from Gharibashvili’s tenure. In September, former Defence Minister Juansher Burchuladze was arrested on corruption charges, which was preceded by the detentions of two former deputy ministers.
Speculation and leaks suggesting Gharibashvili would soon be targeted by the authorities have circulated for several months; however, until the recent announcements from the SSG and the Prosecutor General’s Office, there was no official confirmation of this.
In response to the latest investigations, members of the ruling Georgian Dream party claimed their commitment to an uncompromising fight against corruption, even if the case involved a current or former ally. However, opposition politicians and civil society activists have stated they do not believe that the process is genuinely about combating corruption, hinting instead at possible internal intrigues.
From party loyalists to outsiders
Gharibashvili accompanied Georgian Dream’s billionaire founder Bidzina Ivanishvili into politics having previously worked in several of his businesses. In 2012, Gharibashvili was appointed Interior Minister in the first government formed by Georgian Dream after coming to power.
In 2013, he succeeded Ivanishvili as Prime Minister, a position he held until the end of 2015 when he stepped away from public politics. He returned in 2019 to serve as Defence Minister. In 2021, following the resignation of then‑Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, Gharibashvili again took over as prime minister. After Gakharia stepped down, he went into the opposition over apparent disagreements over the arrest of Nika Melia, who was head of the opposition United National Movement party (UNM) at the time.
In 2024, Gharibishvili stepped down as Prime Minister soon after Ivanishvili announced his formal return to politics, and shortly before the party pushed through the controversial foreign agent law, which Gharibashvili’s government had been forced to withdraw amidst protests. He was succeeded as Prime Minister by Irakli Kobakhidze, who remains in the position.
After stepping down as Prime Minister, Gharibashvili took on the role of chair of Georgian Dream, maintaining a low public profile. Rumours of tension between him and the party leadership prior to his exit from politics in April emerged several times. These included reports that Gharibashvili wished to leave the party amidst the widespread public backlash against the government, and was physically assaulted by fellow party members as a result. Gharibashvili denied this as a ‘disgusting lie’ at the time, insisting he had sustained a minor injury while exercising.
Liluashvili, whose home was also raided last week, served as the head of the SSG from 2019 until April 2025, when the government announced he would be appointed Minister of Regional Development. However, two days later, Kobakhidze stated that an agreement could not be reached on several issues, including the functions of the deputy ministers, and as a result, Liluashvili’s candidacy was withdrawn. He was replaced as SSG head by Anri Okhanashvili, who was then replaced five months later by prominent Georgian Dream figure Mamuka Mdinaradze.
Following 4 October’s failed ‘peaceful revolution’ there have been widespread suggestions, including by TV station Formula, that Liluashvili had been feeding protest organisers information before ultimately betraying them.
Partskhaladze, who holds Russian citizenship, briefly served as Georgia’s general prosecutor in late-2013 and has faced past accusations of violence and extortion on behalf of Ivanishvili. In 2023, the US sanctioned him for ties to Russia’s consulting sector and its ‘malign influence’ on Georgia.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
