US demands Gulnara Karimova to return $550 million

The daughter of Uzbekistan’s president Gulnara Karimova and several of her closest associates ignored a US government demand to turn over more than $550 million held in Swiss bank accounts linked to an international money-laundering conspiracy, Bloomberg reports.

The US Justice Department wants Karimova to be held responsible for the payment. Prosecutors made the request in a letter to a Manhattan federal court judge on Thursday, saying Karimova and the group failed to respond to a civil forfeiture complaint against three bank accounts.

That complaint, filed in February, didn’t name Karimova, referring only to corrupt payments made to 'Government Official A, a close relative of a high-ranking Uzbek government official'.

"The corruption proceeds were laundered through a complex series of monetary transactions, including through bank accounts in Switzerland," the edition writes.