Even by the standards of a city that celebrates extravagance, it was a spectacular shopping spree: In just two weeks early last year, an 11-year-old boy from Azerbaijan became the owner of nine waterfront mansions.

The total price tag: about US$44 million ($61 million) – or roughly 10,000 years worth of salary for the average citizen of Azerbaijan.

But the preteen who owns a big chunk of some of Dubai’s priciest real estate seems to be anything but average.

His name, according to Dubai Land Department records, is Heydar Aliyev, which happens to be the same name as that of the son of Azerbaijan president Ilham Aliyev.

The owner’s date of birth, listed in property records, is also the same as that of the president’s son, Washington Post reported.

Officials in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, declined to comment on how the president’s son – or at least an Azerbaijani schoolboy with the same birth date and the same name as the son’s – came to own mansions on Palm Jumeirah.

The luxury real estate development is popular with British soccer stars and others with cash to burn.

Mr Ilham Aliyev’s annual salary as president is the equivalent of US$228,000, far short of what is needed to buy even the smallest Palm property.

Mr Azer Gasimov, the president’s spokesman, declined to discuss the Dubai real estate purchases.

No comment

“I have no comment on anything. I am stopping this talk. Goodbye,” he told the Post when contacted by telephone and told about the names on the property records.

He also did not respond to requests for further comment sent by fax, e-mail and SMSes.

In addition to recording nine properties owned by Heydar Aliyev, the now 12-year-old schoolboy, Dubai’s Land Department also has files in the names of Leyla and Arzu Aliyeva.

President Aliyev has two daughters with the same names and roughly the same ages.

In all, Azerbaijanis with the same names as the president’s three children own real estate in Dubai worth about US$75 million, property data indicate.

Dubai real estate dealers with knowledge of some of the transactions told the Washington Post that the purchases were made by a buyer representing Azerbaijan’s ruling family.

The dealers said the properties were paid for upfront.

This article was first published in The New Paper.