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The U.K. National Crime Agency suffered a setback Wednesday when the High Court in London threw out unexplained wealth orders, or UWOs, against three luxury properties owned by relatives of Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s former autocrat ruler.

In a 68-page ruling, Justice Beverly Lang chastised the NCA’s “assumption” that Rakhat Aliyev, Nazarbayev’s son-in-law, who died in an Austrian prison five years ago while awaiting trial for murder, laundered the proceeds of embezzlement by purchasing properties in London through his ex-wife and son, who beneficially own the residences through offshore entities.

Lang instead ruled that Rakhat’s son Nurali Aliyev, and his mother Dariga Nazarbayeva, who is Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter and Rakhat’s ex-wife, provided compelling evidence that they used legitimate funds to purchase the properties, which are worth £80 million combined.

“The documentary evidence appears to be genuine, and much of it is capable of verification by the NCA,” Lang ruled.

Attorneys acting for Aliyev and his mother petitioned the High Court in London last month to cancel the orders, which target a £32 million apartment in Chelsea and two north London properties worth £9.3 million and £39 million respectively.

The NCA obtained the UWOs in May after persuading a judge that the funds behind the purchases probably originated from crimes committed by Rakhat Aliyev, who was convicted by a Kazakhstani court in 2008 of kidnapping, organizing a criminal group, extortion, robbery, misappropriation of state property and fraud.

He had by that time already fled to Austria after having divorced Nazarbayeva in 2007, a year before the family acquired the first property in London, and had no further contact with his son and ex-wife following the breakup, the family claimed. Lang on Wednesday accepted the family’s claim that the elder Aliyev ceased communications with them after the divorce.

The family owned each of the three residences in London through offshore entities but the NCA should not have relied on this fact alone to conclude that the funds behind the purchases were illicit, Lang ruled.

“There are lawful reasons—privacy, security, tax mitigation—why very wealthy people invest their capital in complex, offshore corporate structures or trusts,” she said. “Of course, such structures may also be used to disguise money laundering, but there must be some additional evidential basis for such a belief.”

The NCA, according to Lang, did not consider the possibility that Nazarbayeva was a successful businesswoman who earned the funds behind two of the home purchases legitimately nor take the breakdown of her relationship with her ex-husband into account in assessing the likelihood that she would launder funds for him.

The NCA also failed to consider that Kazakhstani authorities seized Nazarbayeva’s ex-husband’s assets but left hers untouched after determining that he had not transferred any of his illegally acquired funds to her, according to Lang.

She also dismissed the NCA’s claim that another target of the orders, Andrew Baker, a U.K. attorney who acted as the president for Panamanian foundations through which Nazarbayeva owned two of the properties, could be considered a politically exposed person or suspected of involvement in serious crime solely because of his links to Aliyev Sr.

The NCA simply had not produced any evidence to suggest that Baker ever had contact with Aliyev Sr., who died before his ex-wife and son approached Baker to preside over the foundations in August 2015, and appeared to have no involvement with the family beforehand, according to the judge.

Documents that Aliyev Jr. and his mother sent to the NCA showing that the funds used to buy the properties came from a bank loan and legitimate share sales before legally passing through legal-entity accounts constituted “cogent evidence” and should not have been dismissed out of hand, Lange ruled.

The NCA rejected the Aliyevs’ explanations on the basis that their voluntary submissions fell significantly short of complying with the UWOs.

Jonah Anderson, a partner with White & Case in London, told ACAMS moneylaundering.com that the ruling highlights deficiencies in the NCA’s investigation into the Aliyevs, and the agency’s assertion that Baker, the attorney, could be viewed as a politically exposed person potentially represents an “overreach on the legal side.”

“The judge is looking at it more objectively and clearly found the [Aliyevs’] explanations and supporting evidence compelling,” Anderson said. “The NCA will have to rethink its approach.”

The agency plans to appeal the ruling.

“Unexplained wealth orders are new legislation and we always expected there would be significant legal challenge over their use,” Graeme Biggar, chief of the NCA’s National Economic Crime Center, said in a statement Wednesday. “These hearings will establish the case law on which future judgments will be based, so it is vital that we get this right.”

Contact Koos Couvée at kcouvee@acams.org