Azerbaijani authorities have detained the nephew of Baylar Eyyubov, President Ilham Aliyev’s former security chief, on charges of smuggling over ₼5.4 million ($3.2 million) in tobacco products as part of an organised group.
The case was launched by the Prosecutor General’s Office on Tuesday. They accused Ruslyan Eyyubov, Baylar Eyyubov’s nephew, alongside employees of the State Customs Committee (SCC) and a Baku trade company of involvement in the scheme.
Eyyubov headed the trade company and the NB Group. According to local media, his work pertained to the manufacture of stone and other construction materials.
Other detainees include Rashad Dashdamirov, the company’s general director, Zaur Hashimov, the head of the company’s port service, and Farid Usubov, the head of the customs post Baku–Hovsan Trade Seaport under the SCC.
The detainees ‘have been charged with large-scale smuggling, storing goods without excise stamps for the purpose of sale, abuse of office, and committing a crime as part of an organised group’, the prosecutor’s statement read.
The investigation of the ongoing case was announced on 15 December.
According to pro-government media outlet Qafqazinfo, Hasan Eyyubov, another nephew of Baylar Eyyubov, was dismissed from his post as a high-ranking state customs official on the same day.
According to Qafqazinfo, Hasan Eyyubov and Ruslan Eyyubov are brothers.
Baylar Eyyubov was appointed the first Deputy Chief of the Special State Protection Service of Azerbaijan in 1993 and in March 2020, became the chief of Aliyev’s Security Service. He was dismissed from his position in June 2025.
Later, he was appointed the head of the Secretariat of Aliyev.
Pro-government media has since circulated descriptions about Ruslan Eyyubov’s lavish and gaudy 15-hectare garden, which contains a pool in the shape of Azerbaijan.
Usubov, another detainee, is the son of Jabrayil Usubov, the former Deputy Chief of the Special State Protection Service, who was dismissed from his position in October 2019.
Commentators have noted that these arrests may just be a drop in the bucket, and that corruption and criminality in the SCC is widespread.
Natig Jafarli, an economist and head of the opposition REAL Party, commented on the arrests to the pro-government media outlet Hokm.az, arguing the SCC requires top-down reforms.
‘Azerbaijan’s customs system requires comprehensive, not cosmetic, reform. If this doesn’t happen, the steps taken will be ineffective’.
Separately, Jafarli noted on social media that there have been similar arrests connected to the SCC in the past.
‘Over the 34 years of independence, the SCC has repeatedly been convicted of corruption and other violations of the law. So this institution has its own problems. It's impossible for all hundreds of people in its ranks to be criminals’, wrote Jafarli.
The authorities in Azerbaijan have lately been arresting a number of former officials or influential businesspeople associated with the Aliyevs or Azerbaijan’s petrol industry.
Most notably, the authorities in October detained the former head of Azerbaijan’s Presidential Administration, Ramiz Mehdiyev, charging him with actions aimed at seizing power, high treason, and money laundering.
Aytan Farhadova
