Wanted former Ivanishvili aide in exile ‘forcibly returned’ to Georgia

Georgia’s State Security Service (SSG) has announced the arrest of Giorgi Bachiashvili, Bidzina Ivanishvili’s former aide and ally, claiming that he was arrested on the Georgia–Armenia border, while his defence team says that he was forcibly returned to Georgia. Bachiashvili was arrested a day after an interview with The Guardian on his relationship and dealings with Ivanishvili.

The SSG announced Bachiashvili’s arrest on Tuesday morning, claiming that they had received an anonymous tip that Bachiashvili was moving near the area border crossing with Azerbaijan and the Sadakhlo border crossing with Armenia.

In the post announcing his arrest, the SSG attached a video showing intelligence officers accompanying a handcuffed Bachiashvili into a building.

Bachiashvili, who holds both Georgian and Russian citizenship, announced that he fled Georgia by ‘secretly’ crossing into Armenia in early March, and that he entered Armenia using his Russian passport.

He said that he fled the country due to safety concerns, but vowed to continue his fight against Ivanishvili, threatening to publish an ‘exposé’ about the billionaire.

Former Ivanishvili confidant flees Georgia and vows to ‘expose’ him

Giorgi Bachiashvili is embroiled in two financial disputes with his former ally, Bidzina Ivanishvili.

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Bachiashvili was facing two criminal cases at the time of his departure, including one involving Bitcoin investments on behalf of Ivanishvili, his former employer. In the case, which was initiated in 2023, Ivanishvili accused him of illegally appropriating ₿8,253.13 — worth around $40 million at the time, according to the investigation — and money laundering. He was released on a bail of ₾2.5 million ($900,000) in the same year, but was sentenced to 11 years in absentia following his departure from Georgia.

The second case, launched in 2025, had the authorities accusing Bachiashvili of failing to or improperly fulfilling his official duties as the former head of the Co-Investment Fund. He was released from pre-trial detention on a bail of ₾50,000 ($17,900).

He was additionally charged with illegally crossing the border following his departure from Georgia in March.

‘Forcibly returned to Georgia’

Amsterdam and Partners, a D.C. based law firm representing Bachiashvili, published a statement on Tuesday condemning their client’s ‘forcible return’ to Georgia, where he is subjected to ‘arbitrary detention and mistreatment’.

The firm went on to say that Bachiashvili is the target of an ‘intensifying campaign of political persecution orchestrated by Bidzina Ivanishvili, Georgia’s de facto ruler’.

‘Ongoing criminal proceedings in Georgia against Mr Bachiashvili, including nonsensical and time-barred charges stemming from legitimate business activities over a decade ago, reflect the systemic use of the judiciary as a tool of political control’, they said, adding that his ‘forced return’ places him at ‘immediate risk of arbitrary detention, coercive interrogation, and abusive mistreatment’.

They cited reports of torture by Georgian law enforcement by the UN Committee Against Torture, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture.

‘These concerns are particularly acute in politically sensitive cases like Mr Bachiashvili’s, where the independence of the judiciary is wholly compromised’, they said, echoing sentiments suggesting that the country’s judicial system was under Georgian Dream’s control.

‘The legal proceedings against Mr Bachiashvili in Georgia have themselves been a violation of basic standards of due process. They are part of a broader pattern in which politically connected prosecutors and judges are used to silence perceived opponents of the regime and dismantle independent centers of influence.’

A tell-all with The Guardian

Just a day before his arrest, The Guardian published an extensive interview with Bachiashvili detailing his relationship and business dealings with Ivanishvili.

In the article, The Guardian quoted Bachiashvili as saying that he was Ivanishvili’s ‘closest person, right-hand man’.

‘Consigliere, I would not say’, Bachiashvili told The Guardian. ‘As consiglieri do the shady stuff as well’.

Bachiashvili said that he was responsible for Lynden Management Ltd, a company linked to Ivanishvili which he said owned and managed his $1.3 billion arts portfolio in New York and London.

Bachiashvili said that Ivanishvili transferred his art collection to Georgia in 2022 for fear of sanctions. He added that hasty amendments passed by Georgian Dream in April 2024, which exempted taxes and duties on offshore assets being brought into the country, net Ivanishvili a profit of $400 million from selling his art pieces.

‘Like, that’s $400 million he’s just taken out of the pocket of Georgia’, he said.

‘I was maybe the most regular guest in the Ivanishvili residence, in his business centre’, he said. ‘I would see prime ministers, judges, prosecutor [generals], ministers of interior, everybody walking to his meetings like employees. He would sometimes yell at them, sometimes call them worthless. It’s just like a sultan and his servants’.

Throughout the article, The Guardian cited or quoted Ivanishvili’s lawyer as denying Bachiashvili’s claims — including of how Ivanishvili treated Georgian officials.

Bachiashvili also spoke to The Guardian about Ivanishvili’s reported collection of exotic animals, including zebras, peacocks, sharks, and dolphins. He said that Ivanishvili also had a collection of ancient tall trees from Georgia in his private arboretum at his summer residence in Ureki.

‘He has to own something to love it — that’s his worldview’, Bachiashvili told The Guardian.

He added that the billionaire ‘was obsessed with his mortality’, and that he was ‘doing all these experimental, crazy procedures, such as stem cell transplants and all these crazy voodoo things. His voodoo master, Yulia Krushanova, lives with him’.

According to The Guardian, Krushanova describes herself as an ‘anti-aging medicine specialist’. The British daily also cited unverified reports that suggested Krushanova was married to a Russian intelligence officer.

Ivanshivili’s lawyer denied that a ‘voodoo doctor’ lived with him, saying that Bachiashvili’s statements were ‘absurd’ and that ‘no doctor lives with [Ivanishvili], much less with  “occult” deviations, and no experiments are held’.

Bachiashvili said that he came to the decision to leave Georgia in the midst of his legal battle with Ivanishvili in the bitcoin case, claiming to have received a message from ‘one of the guys’ in the SSG who quoted Ivanishvili as saying that he will ‘crush him in jail and I will make him do what I want’.

He then went on to explain how he had fled to Armenia, saying that for months, he visited the regions near the Armenian border so as not to arouse suspicion when the time came for him to flee.

He noted that both his Russian and Georgian passports had been confiscated by the authorities as a result of the legal cases against him, but said that he was able to secretly renew his Russian passport, which he used to enter Armenia and then fly to Qatar.

‘Ivanishvili’s grip on this power is existential for him’, he said. ‘He is fighting for his life. He’s like a machine only working in favour of his reptilian desires. And that desire is to stay alive’.

It is unclear whether Bachiashvili remained in Qatar following his alleged entry into Armenia.

Some have suggested that Bachiashvili was seeking refuge in the UAE, and that he was extradited from there as part of a deal between Tbilisi and Abu Dhabi.

These speculations emerged following Georgia’s withdrawal of the candidacy of Zurab Pololikashvili for the position of UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) secretary-general, stating that it would support the UAE’s instead.

The opposition-aligned Formula TV had asked Pololikashvili whether he believed that his candidacy was traded for Bachiashvili’s extradition from Abu Dhabi. In response, Pololikashvili said he did not want to ‘gossip’, but if that were indeed the case, ‘that’s another tragedy’.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze denied that Bachiashvili was extradited from the UAE in exchange for the UNWTO position.

‘It is completely offensive and wrong to spread such claims, but we know who is spreading such claims, they have no boundaries when it comes to state interests’, said Kobakhidze.

‘As for Zurab Pololikashvili, I explained the reason for withdrawing his candidacy and it had nothing to do with anything else. The reason was that he insulted the state, what other details are involved here, this decision was made much earlier than decisions were made on other issues, therefore this is empty speculation.’

Georgia withdraws candidate for UN tourism agency secretary-general and backs UAE’s bid

Pololikashvili, the incumbent secretary-general, has suggested that the move was linked to his appointment of a former Georgian ambassador who resigned in protest.

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