The Daily Beast has discovered previously unreported details behind the clandestine network that prosecutors say funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX). The network’s sprawling roots stretch from a consulate at the edge of Los Angeles to the glittering capital of a despotic ex-Soviet regime, and from the D.C. foreign aid complex near Foggy Bottom to a hydroponic farm in Maryland that supplied Georgetown’s leading bipartisan hangouts.
The bribery indictment of the Texas congressman describes, among other things, how the congressman allegedly struck a deal for his wife to receive $360,000 in “sham contracts” from the state-owned oil company of autocratic Azerbaijan. The feds say these arrangements ran through an Azerbaijani-born, U.S.-based intermediary—called “Individual-2” in the criminal complaint—and at times through his import-export business, referred to as “U.S. Company-1.” Cuellar and his wife have denied any wrongdoing.
Based on details in the indictment—including that Individual-2 served as Azerbaijani vice consul in L.A. between March 2006 and April 2010, resides in Potomac, Maryland, and formed a shell entity in Texas on August 22, 2017—The Daily Beast can identify Individual-2 as Elshan Baloghlanov, which the The Texas Observer has also reported.
