Georgia’s former Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has appeared in court charged with large-scale money laundering – a shocking turnaround for one of the most loyal allies of billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, widely seen as Georgia’s de facto leader.

Prosecutors said when his home was raided by investigators earlier this month they discovered $6.5m (£4.9m) in cash.

Garibashvili, 43, twice served as prime minister during the Ivanishvili years – first from 2013-15 and then again from 2021 until January last year.

Now he has pleaded guilty to corruption charges that could carry a 12-year jail term and he has been granted bail of one million Georgian lari ($368,000; £277,000).

The charges against the former prime minister are the latest in a string of detentions of ex-government officials.

But the case against Garibashvili is the first prosecution of a senior member of Georgia’s governing elite, and it comes amid the ruling party’s authoritarian pivot away from the West.

While serving first as defence minister and then as prime minister between 2019 and 2024, he is alleged to have “secretly and covertly engaged in various types of business activities and received a particularly large amount of income of illegal origin”.

He is accused of laundering this income and falsely declaring money as gifts from family members.

His lawyer, Amiran Giguashvili, confirmed his client was working with authorities.

“The court took into account that Mr Irakli agrees to the charges, does not hide from the investigation and co-operates,” he told the BBC.

The corruption case marks a dramatic fall for a politician who worked in Ivanishvili’s companies before entering politics in 2011 as part of the billionaire’s Georgian Dream party, which has been in power since 2012.

In February 2014, he signed Georgia’s Association Agreement with the European Union.

However, in recent years he has led Georgia’s shift away from the EU. He developed close ties with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and said Nato’s enlargement was one of the main reasons for the war in Ukraine.

According to Georgian political analyst Ghia Nodia, the former prime minister’s downfall reflects Bidzina Ivanishvili’s mistrust of his former political appointees.

“Ivanishvili is really the driver, he decided for some reason that there is some kind of treason in his team,” Nodia said.

“At this point, he trusts [current PM Irakli] Kobakhidze but stopped trusting his closest lieutenant, not just Garibashvili, but also [ex-security chief] Liluashvili and others.”

Meanwhile, Georgia’s political turmoil continues, a year after Georgian Dream won contested parliamentary elections which the then president refused to recognise.

There have been daily protests since the government’s announcement in November 2024 that it would halt membership talks with the EU, and most opposition leaders are now in jail.

New legislations have targeted civil society, pro-opposition media, and journalists and activists have been imprisoned.

“Ivanishvili seems like [he’s] under siege,” says Ghia Nodia. “He believes these crazy deep state conspiracies that the West wants to destroy him through these continuous protests in Georgia.”