The son of a Chinese-born Uyghur oligarch who allegedly ran a massive smuggling and money-laundering ring has purchased a former church in North London for more than $3 million and converted it into a mosque and cultural center, OCCRP reported.
Citing corporate and property filings, the investigative-news organization concluded that Nur Muhammed Palvan, the son of Khabibula Abdukadyr, used a front company to purchase the property in the neighborhood of Palmers Green in 2023. Palvan then converted the former church into the “Satuq Bughra Khan Mosque and Uyghur Islamic Education Centre” for an unknown sum, OCCRP said.
According to a 2019 investigation by OCCRP, Kloop, and RFER/RL, Khabibul Abdukadyr is a powerful trade and logistics magnate who has colluded with corrupt officials to control the flow of Chinese goods into Central Asia. An individual who formerly worked for Abdukadyr and admitted to laundering hundreds of millions of dollars for the oligarch and his family was murdered in Istanbul shortly after speaking to journalists.
The documents provided by the former employee before his death show that Palvan, while living in the U.K. under the name Aibibula Nuermaimaiti, received more $1,800,000 through a financial network used by his family to hide illicit proceeds, OCCRP said. Nuermaimaiti also appeared on ownership papers for companies and assets tied to the family’s logistics empire.
The origin of the funds used to buy and refurbish the London property is unclear, and there is no evidence that staff at Izqilar, the Uyghur charity that runs the cultural center, knew of the source of the money, the news outlet said.
Read more at OCCRP