A series of leaked emails to British newspaper The Daily Mail reveals the depth of former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s advisory relationship to the government of Kazakhstan. Daily Mail reporters estimated Kazakh President Nursultan Nazabayev spent more than £ 20 million (US$ 29.1 million) to secure Blair’s services. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7e56f14429')Tony Blair (Photo: Center for American Progress) Through his firm Tony Blair Associates, Blair has offered his services to President Nazarbayev for £ 5.3 million (US$ 7.7 million) a year, The Daily Mail said. Nazarbayev is accused of human rights abuses, including the killing 15 protesters in 2011 and the routine use of torture. Blair has been signing highly profitable consultancy deals in Kuwait, Qatar, Colombia, China and “a host of murky dictatorships” since leaving office in https://www.opendemocracy.net 2007, The Daily Mail reported. They are each probably charged the same multimillion pound fee per annum, according to estimates by Daily Mail reporters. Blair denies personally profiting from his business deals in Kazakhstan, saying that the money goes to fund his charities. His office told The Daily Mail he helped to set up the advisory group but did not personally advise President Nazarbayev. However, leaked emails showed that Blair’s former chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, contacted one of Nazarbayev’s aides in 2008, shortly after Blair left office as Prime Minister. He wrote Blair “would be happy to provide private strategic advice to President Nazarbayev” and suggested the two men should hold meetings every three to six months, beginning January 2009. Powell said they should discuss international affairs and “the proposed nature of future cooperation between Tony Blair and his team and President Nazarbayev and the government of Kazakhstan.” The Kazakh government confirmed Blair’s involvement after releasing a video of him sitting in a meeting with Nazarbayev in 2011, The Daily Mail reported. Only weeks after the meeting, Nazarbayev was condemned internationally for allowing police to open fire on unarmed protesters in Zhanaozen, a western oil town. 15 were reported killed and over 100 injured. Blair helped the regime by rewriting a 2012 speech and personally advising him to tackle the human rights criticisms “head on,” The Daily Mail said. In a letter personalized with a handwritten greeting to Nazarbayev, Blair tells the Kazakh president that it is the best way to handle Western media and signs off “With very best wishes. I look forward to seeing you in London. Yours ever, Tony Blair.” He also saw and approved a letter to the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Baroness Ashton, spinning Kazakhstan as “a remarkable success story” and making a case for a stronger partnership with Europe, while downplaying the Zhanaozen massacre, The Daily Mail reported. In 2013, Tony Blair Associates aimed to extend its contract, which started at £ 116,200 (US$ 170,000) a month, plus VAT. It later rose to £ 1.84 million (US$ 2.68 million) a year, The Daily Mail said. Four personal visits by Blair were guaranteed for £ 1.85 million (US$ 2.7 million). The service promised “unique insights and support via personal involvement of Tony Blair.” The government of Kazakhstan was responsible for providing flights, catering and accommodation for Blair and his team, according to the leaked emails and documents seen by The Daily Mail. Since Blair began advising the government in Kazakhstan the country has fallen eight spots on the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index and dropped 18 places on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, The Diplomat reported. WRITTEN BY STELLA ROQUE Ex-UK PM Tony Blair Advised Kazakh President for Estimated $29.1 Mil
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Arvind Tiku is not just another businessman. His business associates include LN Mittal, chairman of the world’s largest steel and metal company, ArcelorMittal, and Timur Kulibaev, son-in-law of former President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7dcd6b1bb8')Arvind Tiku is ranked by Forbes in 2021 as the 18th richest person in Singapore with a net worth of $2.2 billion. India-born Arvind Tiku, 51, ranked by Forbes in 2021 as the 18th richest in Singapore with a net worth of $2.2 billion, has established The Sai Charan Investment Holding Trust in Singapore, of which Auctus Investments Ltd, a British Virgin Islands company, is the prime investment holding vehicle with assets of $199.4 million, show records of Trident Trust, a global corporate services company headquartered in BVI. Tiku is not just another businessman. His business associates include LN Mittal, chairman of the world’s largest steel and metal company, ArcelorMittal, and Timur Kulibaev, son-in-law of former President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. While verifying credentials using the World-Check service offered by Thomson Reuters, Trident Trust had red-flagged Tiku, given his association with Kulibaev and Mittal (both Politically Exposed Persons), and sought an enhanced due diligence check on him. He was shown as a beneficial owner of KazStroyService Global BV, a company controlled by Tiku, LN Mittal, Timur Kulibaev and Goldman Sachs. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7dcd6b1c36') The Indian Express independently corroborated it. The 2013 Annual Report of UK energy company Nostrum Oil and Gas highlights KSS Global as an entity indirectly controlled by the four, and as the beneficial holder of 26.6 per cent of the UK company. Profiling him among the 50 richest in Singapore, Forbes said Tiku left India when he was 18 to study mechanical engineering in Russia and worked as a commodities trader before venturing into oil and gas in Kazakhstan. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7dcd6b1bd0')Document that lists Arvind Tiku as a beneficial owner. Today, he is the Founder and Group Chairman of AT Capital Pte Ltd, a Singapore private equity company, with $2.5 billion in assets spread across sectors such as real estate, hospitality, natural resources, engineering, and construction. Responding to questions from The Indian Express, Hywel Phillip, General Counsel, AT Capital Pte Ltd, said: “Mr. Tiku has been a Non-Resident Indian since 1998. The AT Capital group https://www.opendemocracy.net is not an owner of KSS Global. The AT Capital group sold its interest in KSS in 2018 at the same time as other shareholders including Goldman Sachs.” Tiku set up The Sai Charan Trust in Channel Islands, Guernsey, in August 2011. The trustee of Sai Charan Trust is Standard Chartered Trust (Guernsey) Limited. It’s a discretionary trust set up for estate planning of Tiku, who is also the ‘Settlor’ and ‘Ultimate Beneficial Owner’. In simple words, he owns all assets assigned to the Trust. His wife Niharika Tiku is the ‘Protector’ of the trust, according to the documents. Auctus Investments is the account holder for the trust. While a ‘Settlor’ is a person who sets up the trust, a ‘Protector’ generally supervises the trustee. The trustee, in this case, Standard Chartered Trust (Guernsey) Ltd, administers all the affairs of the trust based on the instructions of the ‘Settlor’ – Arvind Tiku. Phillip said the AT Capital group is held by two irrevocable discretionary trusts, of which The Sai Charan Investment Holding Trust is one. “The beneficiaries of the trusts settled by Mr Tiku include only himself and his immediate family members and no other persons,” he said. To a question if all assets were declared, Phillip said, “All relevant assets/ income required to be disclosed to the Income-Tax department in India, Singapore and/or any other tax jurisdictions have been declared and paid.” Auctus Investments, the BVI company, incorporated in February 2013, owns the investment portfolio kept with Standard Chartered Bank’s branches in Hong Kong and Singapore. This includes cash accounts, bonds, equities, and mutual funds, valued at $199.7 million. The trustee to Sai Charan Trust – Standard Chartered Trust (Guernsey) Ltd – provided nominee shareholders, directors, and secretaries for Auctus Investments, all for a fee. Arvind Tiku and the trustee are named the ‘beneficial owners’ of this investment company. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7dcd6b1c7b') Auctus Investments is the sole shareholder in several companies, including two BVI companies, Starlet Group Holdings Inc and Swift Ventures Assets Ltd. These two BVI companies have been set up primarily to own real estate assets and bank accounts in the United Kingdom, and the ‘beneficial owner’ for both is The Sai Charan Trust. Starlet, the documents show, owns a $34.7 million property in London, and Swift a $1.9 million property, again in London. Besides these two, Auctus Investments and Arvind Tiku, are also named the ‘beneficial owners’ of AT Investments Ltd, which holds assets with an estimated value of $26 million. Tiku is also the beneficial owner of Darley Central Asia Ltd, whose name was changed to Painite Holdings Ltd, effective April 2017, since its investment was not in Asia. Original article source: THE INDIAN EXPRESS It is not yet clear how the unrest in Kazakhstan will end, but it is already known that the country’s first president has room to retreat. He can go to his favorite hotel in Karlovy Vary, or to his brother Bolat in the USA, or to London to his daughter Dariga. “Exit to the Sea” has found a new alternate airfield where Nursultan Abishevich can land — a modest estate in Cannes, on the Cote d’Azur. The mansion at Cannes, boulevard Leader, was bought by SCI CDG Garden House in 2009 for €4.7 million, according to French cadastre data. A little earlier, a company with an authorized capital of €10,000 was acquired by two individuals: Italian lawyer Massimiliano Dall’osso and Venera Nazarbayeva, daughter of Dariga Nazarbayeva and granddaughter of the first president of Kazakhstan. At that time, Venera Nazarbayeva was only nine years old. According to an extract from the commercial register of France, SCI CDG Garden House is owned by Venera Nazarbayeva for 99.99%, the remaining 0.01% is registered with the lawyer Massimiliano Dall’osso. He is the director of this company and signs the documents for Nazarbayev’s granddaughter. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a84f262a307')Signature of a lawyer for Venera Nazarbayev (at that time — Aliyev, after his father) The house of Venera Nazarbayeva is located on the western outskirts of Cannes on a hill overlooking the Cannes Bay of the Ligurian Sea. It is not close to the water, this is not the first line — two kilometers by car. But this is an area of rich residences, where there are no strangers. A little higher up the hill there is a forest for quiet walks. On the territory of the half-hectare plot (4819 m²), in addition to the main two-story house, there is a swimming pool, a private tennis court, a two-car garage and outbuildings. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a84f262a334')Satellite view of the estate. Red shows the boundary between adjacent parcels Now the view from https://www.opendemocracy.net the boulevard to the house of Venera Nazarbayeva is securely hidden from prying eyes by a hedge. But back in 2011, the vegetation was not so lush. This is what a house looked like on Google StreetView ten years ago. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a84f262a33f')House of Venera Nazarbayeva in Cannes in February 2011 It was not by chance that we mentioned the Italian Massimiliano Dall’osso above. This lawyer has been repeatedly mentioned in the context of the Family’s real estate. It is Massimiliano Dall’osso who formally owns the British companies that manage commercial real estate in central London. Way to the Sea has already described how an unknown buyer bought an entire block of Baker Street — including the house at 221B Baker Street, where the writer Arthur Conan Doyle settled his hero, detective Sherlock Holmes. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a84f262a349')The property of Dariga Nazarbayeva and her son on Baker Street Having studied the leaked correspondence, The Times journalists in 2020 found that the complex of buildings on Baker Street is 90% owned by Dariga Nazarbayeva, the remaining 10% is owned by her son Nurali Aliyev. But neither Dariga nor her son have ever confirmed that the £185m property belongs to them. Now, with the discovery of a common lawyer, this connection has received new confirmation. Original source of article: https://teletype.in/ Karim Massimov ran Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee until he was fired by the country’s embattled president late last weekHe and other unnamed intelligence officials were arrested the day after firingHunter Biden once called Massimov a ‘good friend’ in an email from 2016 An undated photo appears to show Joe and Hunter Biden smiling alongside Kazak businessman Kenes Rakishev as well as Massimov It was originally published by an anti-corruption group called the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery and has not been independently verified Reports claim that Hunter traveled all the way from Paris to Kazakhstan without his Secret Service detail in 2014 to discuss a Burisma deal with Massimov The photo resurfaced in 2020 after reports claiming that emails found on Hunter’s laptop could implicate Joe in his son’s international business dealings Kazakhstan’s former intelligence chief Karim Massimov, who Hunter Biden had described as a ‘close friend,’ was arrested last week and charged with high treason as violent anti-government demonstrations there see more than 160 people killed and nearly 8,000 more injured. Massimov was arrested on Thursday, his own agency announced over the weekend, toward the end of a week of bloody protests sparked by a virtually overnight spike in fuel prices. On Wednesday he was fired from his role heading the Kazakhstan National Security Committee by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. He previously served as the country’s prime minister from 2007 to 2012 and again from 2014 to 2016. A photo unearthed in October 2020 appears to show Joe Biden meeting with Massimov and Kenes Rakishev, his son Hunter’s alleged business partner in Kazakhstan. Hunter and Massimov reportedly became friendly when the then-vice president’s son served on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma and Massimov was in his second stint as Kazakh prime minister. The pair met up in Kazakhstan sometime in 2014 to discuss a potential energy deal, emails obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop reveal. Hunter allegedly skipped out on his Secret Service detail for the private get-together. It was in 2016 that the president’s son called Massimov a ‘close friend.’ window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64aab724c687f')An undated photo appears to show Joe Biden and his son Hunter (center) meeting with Kazak businessman Kenes Rakishev (left) and Kazakhstan’s former prime minister Karim Mossimov (right). The photo was first published on the website of an anti-corruption group called the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery in 2019 and has not been independently verified window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64aab724c68b2')Massimov served as Kazakhstan’s prime minister from 2007 to 2012 and again from 2014 to 2016 window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64aab724c68bd')In one email from March 15, 2015, Devon Archer — former adviser to then-Secretary of State John Kerry — forwarded to Hunter an invite from Kazakh banker Marc Holtzman to a ‘small private breakfast’ with Massimov when he was prime minister Another email from a former aide of John Kerry’s shows Hunter getting invited to a ‘private breakfast’ with Massimov in 2015 by Kazakh banker Marc Holtzman. ‘Prime Minister Massimov will be most delighted if you will please join us for a small breakfast at one table at the Willard Hotel, Holmes Suite from 8 am until 9 am,’ Holtzman’s email said. The National Security Committee, which Massimov ran until the day before his arrest, is Kazakhstan’s national intelligence agency that replaced the Soviet-era KGB after the USSR collapsed. There were no details of the treason allegations against him. The security service said other officials were also detained, but did not name them. On Friday, a pro-government politician said on television he had information that the security forces had been ordered to abandon Almaty airport so protesters could take it over. He said they had left a security building in the city undefended, enabling people to seize weapons. It was not immediately possible to verify this account. The airport remains closed but is now under the control of Kazakh security personnel and Russian troops, according to Russia’s defense ministry. Protests that were sparked by a near-doubling of gas prices were initially peaceful when they broke out on January 2. But they quickly turned violent, becoming a broader rebuke against Tokayev’s Russian-backed government. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64aab724c68c7')The protests that sparked by high fuel prices in Kazakhstan on January 2 have since seen more than 160 people killed and nearly 8,000 detained As of January 10, Kazakh authorities reported that 7,939 people have been detained and 164 people were confirmed dead — including three children. The undated photograph of Massimov and the Bidens, published in an October 2020 report, resurfaced in the wake of a New York Post report claiming that emails found on Hunter’s laptop could purportedly implicate Joe in his Click here embattled son’s international business dealings during his time as vice president. In the image — which was published on the website of an anti-corruption group called the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery and has not been independently verified — Joe and Hunter are seen smiling alongside Rakishev and Mossimov. DailyMail.com lifted the lid on Hunter’s alleged relationship with Rakishev last week, revealing that between 2012 and 2014 the former VP’s son worked as a sort of go-between helping the Kazak businessman broker US investments. Emails passed to The Mail via anti-corruption campaigners from the Central Asian country revealed that Hunter held extensive meetings with Rakishev, who has close family ties to the kleptocratic regime of his homeland’s despotic former president Nursultan Nazarbayev. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64aab724c68cf')DailyMail.com lifted the lid on Hunter’s alleged relationship with Rakishev (pictured) last week Hunter also traveled to the Kazakh capital of Astana to hold business discussions with Rakishev, who was apparently looking to invest a portion of his personal fortune in New York and Washington DC. Hunter then attempted to persuade Rakishev to buy into a Nevadan mining company, brokering a series of meetings with the firm, before convincing him to invest a cool million dollars with Alexandra Forbes Kerry, the film-maker daughter of Democrat Senator and former Presidential candidate John Kerry. Rakishev, who wrote messages in broken English, appeared to have become intimate with the vice president’s son, calling Hunter ‘my brother!’ and ‘my brother from another mother!’ They shared gossip about their family holidays and dined together at luxury restaurants in New York and Washington DC (‘I’m on vacation with family [at] Lake Michigan … trying to spend some much needed time with my wife and daughters. It’s my 20th anniversary of marriage tomorrow,’ Hunter told Rakishev in July 2013). The unverified photo fueled speculation that Hunter may have dragged his father into the oligarch’s orbit as well — deepening a long-standing controversy over Hunter’s overseas business dealings when Joe was VP. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64aab724c68d8')Joe Biden and his son Hunter are facing renewed scrutiny related to Hunter’s business dealings overseas after his abandoned laptop was found to hold e‑mails that allegedly show Joe Biden was in on Hunter’s deals. Joe Biden’s campaign has denied any wrongdoing Hunter has for years been criticized for his lucrative but ethically questionable work overseas, which has often created apparent conflicts of interest with Joe’s official roles. The Biden campaign was rocked by a vintage ‘October surprise’ last week when a New York Post expose claimed that Hunter’s laptop was abandoned at the computer shop in April 2019 for months and was found to contain emails that could implicate Joe. The laptop’s hard drive was obtained by Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who shared its contents with the Post. Senior federal officials told Fox News on Tuesday that the FBI is now in possession of the computer and confirmed that Hunter’s emails are ‘authentic’. The emails indicated that Hunter introduced his father Vadym Pozharskyi of Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company that Hunter served on the board of, in 2015. The purported meeting allegedly took place a year before Joe pressured Ukrainian government officials to fire the prosecutor involved in an investigation of Burisma. In one email, Pozharskyi wrote: ‘Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.’ The email did not state that the two actually met, and the Biden campaign responded that ‘we have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place.’ But the campaign later conceded that they couldn’t rule out that the meeting may have happened. Other emails purportedly sent by Hunter showed him leveraging his dad’s office to boost his pay on Burisma’s board. The FBI has declined to confirm whether or not it is examining Hunter’s laptop and its contents. It comes hours after former President Trump demanded that Attorney General Bill Barr ‘act fast’ and appoint a special counsel to probe his Democratic rival before Election Day. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64aab724c68e0')Then-Donald Trump said he wanted attorney general Bill Barr to name a special prosecutor to probe the Bidens Trump called for Barr to appoint someone to probe the laptop, which has become the subject of repeated Trump attacks on his rival after Giuliani handed over the contents to the Post. The ex-president said it revealed ‘major corruption’ and that it has to come out before the election. Trump has yet to specify what crime he believes the Bidens have committed, but that has not stopped him from going as far as suggesting to voters that Biden belongs in jail. His demand would appear to run smack into a Justice Department policy against taking actions that would interfere in an election – an issue that played out in 2016 in both the Hillary Clinton email probe and the then-unknown Russia probe. ‘We’ve got to get the attorney general to act. He’s got to act. And he’s got to act fast. He’s got to appoint somebody,’ Trump said when asked about naming a special counsel on Fox & Friends. Who is Kenes Rakishev? The Kazak businessman who ‘hired Hunter Biden as a go-between for brokering US investments’ Reporting by Guy Adams for The Daily Mail Kenes Rakishev’s relationship with Hunter Biden was laid bare in emails obtained by the Daily Mail last week amid a deepening scandal surrounding Hunter’s overseas business dealings. The Mail revealed that between 2012 and 2014, Hunter worked as a sort of go-between for Rakishev, a self-styled ‘international businessman, investor and entrepreneur’ with close family connections to the kleptocratic regime of his homeland’s despotic former president Nursultan Nazarbayev. In the UK, Rakishev is perhaps best known due to a bizarre 2008 episode when he’d helped a fellow oligarch chum called Timur Kulibayev use a firm registered in the British Virgin Islands buy a home from Prince Andrew: his Windsor mansion Sunninghill Park, which oddly went for £15million, some £3million over the asking price. Coverage of the episode had noted that Kulibayev was the son-in-law of the aforementioned despot Nazarbayev, who ruled Kazakhstan for more than two decades, turning it into one of the world’s most corrupt kleptocracies. Rakishev, for his part, is married to the daughter of a former mayor of the country’s capital city (recently re-named ‘Nursultan,’ after the elderly despot), who later served as its Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64aab724c68ea')The Mail revealed that between 2012 and 2014, Hunter worked as a sort of go-between for Rakishev (pictured), a self-styled ‘international businessman, investor and entrepreneur’ with close family connections to the kleptocratic regime of his homeland’s despotic former president Nursultan Nazarbayev Fast forward to 2012 and Rakishev had just joined Forbes magazine’s top-15 list of Kazakhstan’s ‘most influential’ tycoons, with estimated assets of some $332million. Like many an oligarch in possession of a huge fortune, Rakishev was now looking for a safe place to park it, so had come to America in search of new places to invest his hard-earned roubles. Sadly, things hadn’t gone entirely smoothly. For in the highly-regulated world of Western capitalism, Rakishev discovered that blue-chip investment partners were often reluctant to take his cash. To blame? The fact that no one was entirely sure where his wealth actually came from. For example, the leaked emails obtained by the Mail show that the International Finance Corporation, a highly respectable sister organisation of the World Bank, held preliminary talks with Rakishev about a business collaboration, before deciding to pull out. The IFC then politely informed the oligarch that it ‘cannot invest with him’ because its ‘very deep due diligence processes’ had established that he had some ‘connections’ involving the ‘president’s family’ that ‘are a liability to us’. Seemingly outraged, Rakishev responded that he would ensure that the organization ‘never works in Kazakhstan with anyone.’ The United States Department of Justice then took an interest in Rakishev. It soon dragged him into an investigation of potential breaches the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act related to ‘an investment in the oil and gas industry in Kazakhstan’. Though Rakishev immediately denied all wrongdoing, and no charges were ever filed, in September 2013 he decided to hire a notoriously expensive US law firm called Greenberg Traurig to deal with incoming fire related to the probe. It seems that two attorneys who led a team working the Kazakh’s case, John Pappalardo and Stanford Saunders, charged him in the region of $1,000 and $700 per hour respectively. It was, doubtless, a very annoying (and expensive) business; not to mention highly frustrating for a man who had perhaps grown used to getting his own way. Which is perhaps what persuaded him to take meetings with Hunter Biden, a member of one of America’s most powerful political dynasties. In May 2012, he was emailed by Hunter’s business partner Devon Archer, a lawyer and former Abercrombie & Fitch model. ‘Can you have dinner with me, Hunter Biden, Alex [Forbes Kerry] and team on Wednesday next week in NYC? I want to let Hunter know when he should come up from DC to see you on Wednesday. Looking forward to seeing you!’ Rakishev replied: ‘Hi Devon! I would be happy to have a dinner with you and all our friends! Thank you very much for invitations! Take care my brother!’ By July, Hunter had travelled to Astana to discuss business opportunities. ‘I wanted to check in with you and see what our next steps are to follow up on our visit to Kazakhstan,’ he wrote in an email Kazakh Opposition sent to UK Authorities the summary of research into London Secret Properties controlled by Dariga Nazarbayeva, Dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev’s Eldest Daughter Exiled Kazakh opposition activists have appealed to ministers and parliamentarians in the United Kingdom to investigate secret properties belonging to Dariga Nazarbayeva and her family. At issue are several expensive buildings in London purchased by her late husband Rakhat Aliyev, who according to official accounts committed suicide in a prison in Vienna, the Austrian capital, on the eve of his trial in 2015. Austrian authorities prosecuted Rakhat Aliyev over allegations from Kazakh citizens who accused him of killing business rivals, torture, racketeering and business seizures. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d6047ddc3')Dariga Nazarbayeva stands with her father, president Nursultan Nazarbayev, alongside Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. The most important findings of the investigation relate to buildings and land in London at: 215–229 Baker Street (“Abbey House”), 231–237 Baker Street (“Abbey House Annexe”), 6–8 Melcombe Street, 32 Denewood Road, 33 The Bishops Avenue. These properties were purchased by Rakhat Aliyev at a time when he was the head of a criminal group of officers from the Kazakh Tax Police and National Security Committee. As the head of these agencies, as well as the son-in-law and the closest confidant of President Nazarbayev, Rakhat Aliyev controlled many of Kazakhstan’s monopolistic industries, racketeering and seizing successful businesses with impunity. Dariga Nazarbayeva and their eldest son Nuraly Nazarbayev (Aliyev) acted as partners and accomplices in these businesses and then, after Aliyev’s death, practically inherited his assets both at home and abroad. A summary of the investigation carried out by the British agency Ventham Consulting (https://www.venthamconsulting.co.uk/) specially for KIAR contains the names of the shell companies, lawyers and nominal owners, behind which Rakhat Aliyev first hid, and then his wife and children. It is thanks to these people that the real estate criminally acquired and laundered in the UK by Rakhat Aliyev and Dariga Nazarbayeva has not yet been subject to confiscation under the Unexplained Wealth Order. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d6047ddf6')Youyou Zhou SUMMARY OF REVIEW OF THE NCA UWO CASE Background The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) prepared a case investigating the alleged links between the late Rakhat ALIYEV and a number of properties in London, funded by what was believed to be funds obtained from criminal activity. As a result of their investigation, at an ex parte hearing on 22/05/2019, the Hon. Mr Justice SUPPERSTONE granted the NCA three Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOs) and their related Interim Freezing Orders (IFOs) relating to: 32 Denewood Road, London N6 4AH – UWO reference CO/1540/2019, directed against Mr Andrew J. BAKER, and IFO reference CO/1541/2019, directed against Mr Andrew J. BAKER, and the Villa Magna Foundation; 33 The Bishops Avenue, London N2 0BN – UWO reference CO/1542/2019, directed against the Manrick Private Foundation, and IFO reference CO/1543/2019, directed against the Manrick Private Foundation, and Alderton Investments Limited; and Apartments 9 and 14, 21 Manresa Road, London SW3 6LZ – UWO reference CO/1544/2019, directed against Mr Andrew J. BAKER, and IFO reference CO/1545/2019, directed against Mr Andrew J. BAKER, and the Tropicana Assets Foundation. The Respondents to these UWOs and IFOs subsequently applied, on 04/09/2019, to the High Court for discharge of these Orders and a hearing was held before the Hon. Mrs Justice LANG on 10/03/2020 and 11/03/2020. On 08/04/2020 Mrs Justice LANG delivered her Finding. She held that the NCA had failed to prove that the funds used to purchase the properties originated from criminal activity, that they were directly linked to Rakhat ALIYEV, or that the Respondents were involved in serious crime. She further stated her view that the NCA’s case was flawed by inadequate investigation, and that the NCA had failed to carry out a fair-minded evaluation of material provided by the Respondents. The NCA lodged an appeal against this Finding, which was heard by the Right Hon Mrs Justice CARR at the Court of Appeal (Civil Division). She dismissed the application to appeal on 17/06/2020. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d6047de06')Youyou Zhou Purpose of Report Ventham Consulting was independently retained to research and prepare a number of reports concerning individuals and companies connected to the properties that were subject of the UWOs. This report reviews all of the material that was made public in the course of the hearings, and obtained through open-source research around it, and associated material. As a result, it is believed that there was a sound case to answer in relation to the UWOs, but that it failed because of: inadequate investigation (as highlighted by Mrs Justice LANG);a failure adequately to research explanations given by the Respondents;a failure to challenge assertions made by the Respondents’ Counsel; anda failure to utilise open-source research – much of which had been provided to the NCA, prior to the hearing, by interested parties. It is clear from the research that the three properties which, for ease of reference, are described as the “UWO Properties” are linked to other properties that have, for several years, been suspected of having been purchased by Rakhat ALIYEV. These properties, all adjoining, are: 215–229 Baker Street, London NW1 (known as “Abbey House”); 231–237 Baker Street, London NW1 (known as “Abbey House Annexe”); 6–8 Melcombe Street, London NW1; and land adjoining and connected with these properties. For ease of reference these properties are described as the “Baker Street Properties.” This report highlights evidence that appears to point to other offences, including money laundering, failure to conduct adequate anti money laundering (AML) checks, and Companies Act offences. Summary of specific findings • No primary evidence was adduced to show Rakhat ALIYEV and Dariga NAZARBAYEVA had been legally divorced, calling into question the assertion that funds had been lawfully transferred to the latter. • No evidence was adduced to prove that either Dariga NAZARBAYEVA or Nurali Aliyev were the ultimate beneficial owners of Twingold Holding Ltd at the time of the purchase of 32 Denewood Road, calling into question the true title for the property and the source of the funds to purchase it. • Andrew BAKER, president of both Tropicana Assets Foundation and Villa Magna Foundation, has been involved in at least three legal actions in the USA, one brought by the Department of Homeland Security, in which fraud and money laundering have been alleged. This was not brought before the Hearing. • Significant differences have been found between documentary evidence and the account given by Dariga NAZARBAYEVA’s lawyers concerning her transfer of shares in JSC Kant. • There is evidence that the ultimate beneficial owner of the vendor of 32 Denewood Road(Huckabay Holdings Ltd) is likely to have been Vladimir PALIKHATA, who may have continued to have an interest in the property several months after the transfer of title to Twingold Holding Ltd. No evidence has been made public to indicate what anti money laundering (AML) processes were conducted by the purchasers of the property, to ensure they were not breaching AML regulations in dealing with Mr PALIKHATA. • The Respondents suggested that the funds to purchase 32 Denewood Road were part of a much larger sum that had been transferred from Dariga NAZARBAYEVA’s account with Nurbank to Greatex Trade & Invest Corp. However, no evidence was adduced to show the source and purpose of other transactions at the time, which may have shown that the entire amount was used for another purpose, and calling into question the source of the funds to purchase the property. • The account given by Nurali ALIYEV’s lawyers, concerning the monies apparently used as a deposit to purchase 33 The Bishops Avenue, does not appear to be consistent with the chronology of transactions, and appears to have conflated two separate transactions of approximately £4.5 million, the source of one being wholly unaccounted for. • Dolores Trade & Invest Ltd (one of the companies involved in the purchase of 33 The Bishops Avenue) was subsequently dissolved and, in the course of efforts to have it restored to the register of companies, what appear to be false statements were made to Companies House. It appears to have held a critical role, and was the only UK-registered company in the complex structure. • The bank through which Dariga NAZARBAYEVA transferred at least £118.5 million, Julius Baer Bank (JBB), and which converted it into US dollars, was found to have committed serious breaches of anti-money laundering measures between 2009 and 2018 (the period in which she used her accounts). The bank used a financial instrument (a “Fiduciary Call Deposit”) that would have concealed the identity of the ultimate beneficial owner of the funds, to transfer the money. • The lawyer, Benjamin WARD, who (when with Herbert Smith LLP) acted for the purchaser of 32 Denewood Road, was subsequently appointed a director of four companies linked to Dariga NAZARBAYEVA, one of which was directly involved with the “Baker Street Properties” and the other three of which have the appearance of having been created for the purposes of obscuring financial transfers, at the time of the purchase of the leasehold on the “Baker Street Properties”. • Both Nicholas DRYDEN and Mukhamed-Ali KURMANBAYEV, when involved in the several companies involved in the purchases of both the “Baker Street Properties” and the “UWO Properties”, appear to have made numerous errors in their signed declarations to Companies House, and may have made false statements in these. • Bezhad NAGHIBI, a man with no apparent qualifications or experience to act as a director of companies, was appointed to several that appear to have been established to providea parallel means of opendemocracy transferring funds at the time of the purchase of the “UWO Properties” and afterwards. He also appears to have carried out duties on behalf of Dariga NAZARBAYEVA in relation to her estranged son, Aisultan NAZARBAYEV (also known as Aisultan RAKHAT), who announced he had information about large-scale fraud and money-laundering relating to Kazakhstan and Russia, and who died, apparently of a drug overdose, in London in August 2020. • A few weeks before the Hearing, Aisultan NAZARBAYEV / RAKHAT made public statements alleging Kazakhstan was selling gas to the Russian firm Gazprom “for a pittance” and that this was a means of laundering money from Kazakhstan to wealthy Russians and Kazakhs. This may have been interpreted as referring to TOO “GasDevelopment” – the company to which his mother, Dariga NAZARBAYEVA, sold her shares in JSC Kant. Assessment It is clear that the personalities, corporate structures and mechanisms by which first the “Baker Street Properties” and then the “UWO Properties” were purchased were not only similar but had several overlapping elements. In particular, it is evident that there is a clear hierarchy of roles and responsibilities. At the top are Dariga NAZARBAYEVA and Nurali ALIYEV. Set to one side, and not so intimately concerned in the transactions, are other very wealthy Kazakhs and Russians, such as Rashid SARSENOV and Vladimir PALIKHOTA, who appear to have had their own agendas, for which they were prepared to accept the hundreds of millions of pounds in shares or cash that was offered. The principal facilitators relied upon by Dariga NAZARBAYEVA and Nurali ALIYEV were at the next level, and principally lawyers and accountants: Andrew BAKER, Nicholas DRYDEN, Bernard ENRY, Mukhamed Ali KURMANBAYEV, and Massimiliano DALL’OSSO. It is telling that many of these men had undertaken the same work for Rakhat ALIYEV, and simply transferred their work to his ex-wife and (apparently estranged) eldest son. It is notable that these men acted as officers in almost all of the companies, and provide the clearest evidence of links between the “Baker Street Properties” and the “UWO Properties”. As has been noted above, at least two of them appear to have made repeated and significant errors in documents submitted to Companies House – to the extent that they may be likely to be regarded as having made false declarations. Between the principal facilitators and the very wealthy Kazakhs and Russians are such people as Dina ABDYKALYKOVA, Timur SEGIZBAYEV, Askar TARABAYEV, and Galimzhan YESSENOV. These are all Kazakhs, and appear to be either related to the NAZARBAYEV family, or have close friendships with them, and for whom they were prepared to act as trustees of otherwise ensure the smooth transfer of funds. Acting alongside the primary facilitators are the company formation agents – most notably Sarah and Edward PETRE-MEARS, Clare Alice WILSON, and Amanda USHER-WILSON, Michelle BEZERRA, and Gillian MASTERS. Without their willingness to form the company structures, and provide the necessary corporate services, the convoluted structures (which appear to have been constructed solely for the purpose of creating confusion and obfuscation) would have been impossible. They were assisted by the likes of Mohamed ALALI, Damian CALDERBANK, Stephen KELLY, Andrew STUART, andJohn WORTLEY-HUNT, and it is notable that all of these men gave addresses in Dubai or the UAE. Greatex Int. Real Estate LLC and KZ Capital General Trading LLC are located in these Emirates, and may be a reason for this coincidence of addresses. Lastly, there are the men who were appointed as directors of the several companies at critical points, and appear to have undertaken the necessary actions to ensure the transactions went smoothly. Principal among these were Bezhad NAGHIBI, and Benjamin WARD. They too, like Nicholas DRYDEN and Mukhamed Ali KURMANBAYEV, appear to have placed themselves (or been placed) in invidious positions with regard to potential offences under the Companies Act. While it appears that they were not trusted to the same extent as the principal facilitators, they nonetheless appear to have played critical roles at specific times. Examination of the chronology shows that their appointments came immediately before or after critical events in the preparation for the purchases of the properties and reinforces the inference that their roles were connected to these. It seems likely that both NAGHIBI and WARD would have pertinent information as to the functions of the several companies to which they were appointed. Ventham Consulting Graphics by Youyou Zhou Download full Report (PDF File ) Sater of Laundering Loot Through Trump Properties Adam Klasfeld, Law and Crime, Nov 30th, 2020, Felix Sater, former business associate of U.S. President Donald Trump, arrives for testimony before the House Select Intelligence Committee July 9, 2019 in Washington, DC. Sater was the chief negotiator in the unsuccessful effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. A federal judge on Monday partially advanced a lawsuit accusing Russian mafia-tied businessman Felix Sater of laundering millions stolen from Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank through Trump Organization properties. “In this case, Kazakhstan’s largest city and a Kazakhstani bank seek to recover millions of dollars in stolen funds from those who allegedly helped the culprits launder them,” U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan summarized in a 25-page opinion dismissing only two counts of a five-count complaint. “Felix Sater—the alleged ringleader of the money-laundering operation—along with his associate Daniel Ridloff and several business entities they control, move to dismiss.” Like Sater, Ridloff was also formerly associated with the Trump Organization. The lawsuit stems from allegations of the systematic looting of Kazakhstan’s largest city Almaty and its bank in 2009. “The Court emphasizes that the Kazakh entities will need to adduce evidence showing the Sater defendants’ deceptive conduct and their justifiable reliance on that conduct in significantly greater detail to meet their burdens of production and of proof as the case progresses,” Nathan wrote. “However, at this stage, the Court concludes that it is not clear on the face of the complaint that their claims are untimely, and so declines to dismiss any claims on that basis.” Almaty’s attorney Matthew Schwartz, from the firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, expressed his gratitude to the judge for today’s ruling. “BTA Bank and the City of Almaty are committed to holding Mukhtar Ablyazov and his co-conspirators responsible for the theft and laundering of billions of dollars, and look forward to proving their case before a jury of New Yorkers,” Schwartz said. Sater’s counsel Jill Levi, from the firm Todd & Levi, LLP, emphasized that the ruling itself does not contain explicit references to Trump properties. “We also believe that the remaining claims are teetering on dismissal based upon, among other things, good statute of limitations defenses,” Levi told Law&Crime in an email. Levi also noted that the judge called the allegations of deceptive conduct “thin.” The lawsuit that the ruling advances, however, accuses Sater of helping the Almaty mayor’s son Ilyas Khrapunov launder stolen funds in at least five schemes throughout the United States, including through Trump Soho. “Sater not only met with Ilyas Khrapunov in Trump Tower to discuss laundering the stolen funds, but he also personally arranged meetings between Ilyas and Donald J. Trump to discuss possible investments,” the first amended complaint against Sater states. According to the lawsuit, there was also a proposal to funnel money through Trump Tower Moscow, before that plan fell apart around the time of the 2016 presidential election. “Among other proposed investments, Sater conspired with Ilyas to invest the stolen funds to develop a Trump Tower project in Russia, which Sater has claimed would have been a ‘high-rise, high-end development that could make a significant amount of money,’” the lawsuit states. The plaintiffs do not accuse Trump of wrongdoing. “The knowing receipt of stolen funds in furtherance of a money-laundering scheme, in the circumstances of this case, amounts to a sufficiently close connection to support a claim for unjust enrichment,” the ruling states. “The Court therefore concludes that the Kazakh entities have stated https://www.opendemocracy.net such a claim.” Judge Nathan dismissed two counts of fraud and unlawful means conspiracy, but not others alleging unjust enrichment, conversion and money had and received. Sater of Laundering Loot Through Trump Properties sater-rulingDownload window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d6052228e') The former president — laying low since the country plunged into protest and violence in early January — hid banks, hotels, and a $100 million jet in a network of foundations that answer only to him. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d605222cc') A private jet worth over $100 million. Banks and TV channels. Billions in cash. Some of Kazakhstan’s most luxurious hotels, multiple shopping centers, and a golf course. But also less glamorous possessions: warehouses, a pasta factory, and at one point, even a landscaping company. There is no obvious connection between all of these businesses and assets, which are worth at least $8 billion. But the person behind all of them is Kazakhstan’s longtime leader Nursultan Nazarbayev. He controls them through an unusual mechanism: Four private charitable foundations, all started by him over the course of his long rule, ostensibly to help the people of Kazakhstan. But even while handing out gifts to children or popularizing the Kazakh language, these organizations have secretly acquired stakes in dozens of businesses. Some of the assets were transferred to Nazarbayev’s foundations, or are still co-owned, by oligarchs who owe their riches to the crony capitalism that flourished during his rule. In other cases, the government of Kazakhstan poured money into private companies which were then acquired by the charitable foundations. The result is that Nazarbayev’s non-profit organizations actually own larger business portfolios than many multinational conglomerates. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d605222d8')Kazakhstan’s “First President” and “Leader of the Nation” Nursultan Nazarbayev. Since the foundations are non-profits, Nazarbayev does not formally own their vast assets himself. However, legal experts contacted by OCCRP explained that, under Kazakhstani law, the founder of a private foundation has ultimate control over its assets. Many of the details, including how much was paid for the assets, are unknown — a consequence of the fact that, unlike normal businesses, they do not publish annual reports. But in a months-long investigation, reporters used company records in multiple countries to put together the most complete picture to date of the vast wealth under Nazarbayev’s control. Some of these facts have been publically available, but remained unreported until now in part because critical journalism about the “Leader of the Nation” is a dangerous business. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d605222e1') These findings exemplify the corruption and stark inequality that has plagued Kazakhstan since it gained from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Under Nazarbayev’s long years of leadership, most Kazakhstanis have seen little benefit from their country’s vast mineral wealth, even as it lined the pockets of a circle of billionaires, including members of Nazarbayev’s family and officials close to him. The system barely changed after Nazarbayev resigned from the presidency in 2019. He installed a hand-picked successor, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and retained control of the security council. This explains why, after local protests against high fuel prices in Western Kazakhstan spread across the country in early January, they quickly turned into demands for broader political change — and became personal. The chant “Old man, leave!” became a mainstay of the demonstrations. A photograph widely shared online showed a toppled statue of Nazarbayev. The popular demonstrations were accompanied by an apparent struggle for power behind the scenes, with President Tokayev announcing on January 5 that he had taken over Nazarbayev’s role as head of the security council. Nazarbayev himself has hardly been heard from since the unrest began, and his political influence may be at its end. What will happen to his billions is still unclear. A spokesman for Nazarbayev did not https://www.opendemocracy.net respond to requests for comment. Three of Nazarbayev’s foundations did not respond either. The fourth told OCCRP that the former president did not benefit from any of the assets it held, which were dedicated to securing financing for educational institutions named after him. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d605222ea')Kazakhstan’s capital, Nur-Sultan, used to be called Astana but was renamed in Nazarbayev’s honor in 2019. Thirty Years of Nazarbayev Born into a peasant family, Nazarbayev joined the Soviet Communist Party in his early 20s and rose steadily through its ranks. By the middle of his career, he was at the top of the party structure in Soviet Kazakhstan, holding positions including prime minister and first secretary of the local Party branch. When the post of president was established in 1990, he was selected to fill it. Nazarbayev was overwhelmingly reelected after the country gained its independence the following year, setting the stage for decades of one-man rule. Over that period, Kazakhstan’s constitution was amended several times to expand Nazarbayev’s presidential powers and allow him — and only him — to run for reelection as many times as he wished. His Nur Otan party became the dominant force in a rubber-stamp parliament. Even as his regime repeatedly suppressed freedom of speech and political opposition, it allowed a circle of businessmen close to him to amass enormous fortunes and influence after a wave of privatizations. He was granted full immunity from scrutiny or prosecution, which extends to any entities founded by him. And in 2010, Nazarbayev also gained a new title — “Leader of the Nation.” window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d605222f4') It was around this time that he began to establish the foundations that would eventually come to hold billions in assets. One of these, the Foundation of the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan — Elbasy , had been established years earlier as a public foundation, but in 2011 it was reclassified as “private,” and Nazarbayev was listed as its founder. (It was dissolved in 2021.) Nazarbayev founded two more private foundations, the Nazarbayev Foundation and the Nursultan Nazarbayev Foundation, in 2009 and 2010. He founded another two, Demeu (“Support”) and Elbasy (“Leader of the Nation”), in 2013 and 2021. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d605222fe')For the New Year, the Nursultan Nazarbayev Foundation “fulfilled the dreams” of 228 disabled children by giving them a dollhouse, learning tablets, sportswear, and other gifts. The foundations’ similar names and the way their activities are reported make them difficult to distinguish. Some don’t have websites, and those that exist can be misleading: For example, a website for the Foundation of the First President once redirected visitors to the site of the Nursultan Nazarbayev Foundation — which incorrectly lists the former foundation’s founding year as its own. The Demeu and Elbasy foundations don’t appear to carry out public-facing activities. But the others have touted their educational, social, and patriotic projects, which are frequently reported in glowing terms in the largely pliant Kazakhstani media. In 2011, another new law made the Nazarbayev Foundation responsible for funding two major educational institutions: a network of secondary schools and a flagship research university. But there was more to this arrangement than it seemed. An Endowment — and a Business Empire? Located on a vast campus on the outskirts of Nur-Sultan, Nazarbayev University was founded in 2010 with a mission to modernize Kazakhstan’s higher education system. “The creation of this educational institution is a most important national project, which I will oversee personally,” said Nazarbayev in a 2010 speech shortly after the university opened. “I am convinced that it will have a systematic impact on the development of the capital, our entire state, and society.” window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d60522308')Nazarbayev University. Alongside the university, a network of primary and secondary schools called the “Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools” was also created. Both institutions are generously funded by the state, receiving about $5 billion between 2010 and 2021. This was a disproportionate amount of Kazakhstan’s education budget, especially considering that the university and the schools host only a small proportion of the country’s students. Most educational endowments are set up by universities to receive donations, invest them, and use the profits to fund their needs. But unlike such endowments, the Nazarbayev Foundation does not belong to the educational institutions it’s supposed to fund. Instead, it is a private organization personally founded and controlled by Nursultan Nazarbayev. Confusingly, both the university and the schools also set up their own corporate “development funds,” which they really do control. The Nazarbayev Foundation has no website, does not publish any reports, and has not publicly disclosed how much money it has received from external donors or Nazarbayev himself. When contacted by reporters, the chairman of its board, Aslan Sarinzhipov, provided an official document which revealed that, as of 2019, it had received $1 billion from undisclosed donors and made $200 million in investment income. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d60522310') Sarinzhipov wrote in an email that, in the decade since its creation, the Nazarbayev Foundation had paid $46.5 million to fund research activities, laboratory equipment, student support, and other educational expenses. (This is equivalent to about 1 percent of the state funding the university and the schools received over the same period.) Though it was established in 2009, corporate records show that the Nazarbayev Foundation appeared to have no investment activity until 2019, the year of Nazarbayev’s retirement. By then, the two corporate foundations owned by the schools and university had established an investment fund called Pioneer Capital Invest, and used it to acquire a Kazakhstani bank called ExpoCredit for $30 million. Now the Nazarbayev Foundation joined the party, acquiring 75 percent of Pioneer Capital and leaving the others with just a quarter between them. (The amount it paid for this stake is unknown.) window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d60522317') With its prominent new backer, Pioneer Capital went on a shopping spree, acquiring a major Kazakhstani lender called Tsesnabank. The latter had belonged to the family of Adilbek Dzhaksybekov, a former head of Nazarbayev’s presidential administration, but had to be saved by the government after being mismanaged. Since then, Pioneer Capital has acquired several other banks, an internet marketplace, mobile operators, warehouses, shopping malls, and even a pasta factory. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d6052231d') The total value of its assets is a staggering $7.8 billion, including U.S. Treasury bills, Kyrgyz and Kazakh state bonds, and $3.4 billion in cash. It earned more than $500 million in profits in 2020. In response to reporters’ questions about its investments, the Nazarbayev Foundation’s board chairman, Sarinzhipov, wrote that the organization is a “classic endowment fund … by analogy to the best international practice (the endowment funds of Harvard, Stanford, Duke).” He noted that Nazarbayev “does not have property rights” to its assets and “cannot withdraw money from the organization under any circumstances.” The Foundation’s charter, which the Foundation provided to reporters, does indeed state that its sole purpose is to fund its educational mission. But it also stipulates that the first chairman of its highest executive body, the Supreme Board of Trustees, is Nursultan Nazarbayev — and that he has control over the Foundation, including the contents of the charter itself. Sarinzhipov did not respond to reporters’ questions about what would prevent Nazarbayev from moving assets out of the Foundation for his own benefit, if he chose to do so. Though there is no evidence that this has happened so far, several maneuvers by Foundation structures raise questions. In 2020, a new layer of corporate ownership was added: Pioneer Capital moved its banks, warehouses, shopping malls, and all the rest to a new holding company it established in the United Kingdom called Jusan Technologies. Then, the following year, a mysterious company called QAZ42 Investment acquired a 3 percent stake in Jusan Technologies and its billions of assets, effectively diluting the Nazarbayev Foundation’s share. For this stake, worth over $200 million, it paid just $20 million. It is impossible to determine who is behind this company and its highly lucrative deal, since not even the country of its incorporation is known. Reporters only managed to learn of it because of a U.K. corporate filing. The Foundation has also begun to use especially secretive corporate structures based in Luxembourg, which has already allowed it to secretly acquire a 24-percent stake in a major Kazakhstani mobile operator. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d60522326') Hotels, TV Stations, and Landscaping Nazarbayev’s other three foundations also went on a shopping spree since his resignation from the presidency. In August 2020, an airplane described by Business Insider as a “flying penthouse” departed an outfitting facility in Indianapolis. It stopped in Zurich and Malta before landing in its new home base: Nur-Sultan. The story of the apparent acquisition of this Airbus ACJ320neo — a high-end jet worth over $100 million — illustrates the conflation of the private and the official in Nazarbayev’s post-presidential life as the nation’s elder statesman. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a7d6052232f')Nazarbayev playing golf at the Nurtau golf club — owned by his Elbasy Foundation. The brand-new airplane was acquired from a Swiss aviation outfitter and imported into Kazakhstan by the Nursultan Nazarbayev Foundation, a fact that is only known because reporters obtained a document stating that it had received an exemption from import controls. It is now operated by Berkut Air, a state airline that is subordinate to the presidential administration. And though it’s unknown whether the foundation formally owns the plane, there is compelling evidence that it is used by Nazarbayev. The airplane’s movements have been removed from most flight tracking services, but reporters obtained information about a portion of its flights from the Open Sky Network, a non-profit organization that collects air traffic data. They show that on June 30, 2021, the plane flew from Kazakhstan to Moscow. On the same day, the Kremlin announced that Nazarbayev had held a “working meeting” with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (In thanking Putin for his hospitality, Nazarbayev joked: “I’m a free man now — haven’t been president for three years!”) The plane also made a number of trips within Kazakhstan, two of which reporters were able to match with Nazarbayev’s visits to a tourism hub and an archeological site. The A new report details, in part, how Kazakhstan’s president has helped define the new authoritarian normal. window.tgpQueue.add('tgpli-64a9482b3ee04')Credit: Russian Presidential Press and Information Office From ossifying dictatorships in Russia and Venezuela to proto-autocratic leaders in Hungary and the Philippines, it’s clear that the 2010s are rapidly being defined as an era of democratic retrenchment. Instead of relying solely on brute repression, however, elites within rising authoritarian regimes have found another tool that preceding autocracies could have only dreamed of: a trans-national financial network that the remaining democracies, including the United States and United Kingdom, have been only too willing to provide to ruling post-Soviet, Gulf, and Chinese oligarchs. As Ben Judah ably displays in a new report from the Hudson Institute, it is these networks — these means of offshorization, shell corporations, and legal loopholes — that have allowed the corrupted elites in remaining and prospective autocracies to park their ill-gotten gains abroad, from Manhattan lofts to anonymous companies in Panama and the British Virgin Islands. Indeed, as Judah notes, we have entered a “golden age of money laundering,” with as much as 5 percent of worldwide GDP standing as laundered money. “It has never been simpler or safer to be a kleptocrat,” Judah adds, pointing to an estimate from investigative economist James Henry that upwards of $32 trillion is being held offshore. “Globalization’s deep, structural motors are in fact enabling authoritarians.” As Judah details, few leaders illustrate the rise of the new authoritarians, especially as it pertains to warping Western actors to his bidding, better than Kazakhstani President Nursultan Nazarbayev. Nazarbayev’s corruption website isn’t necessarily a surprise; a decade ago, U.S. officials were describing Nazarbayev as the most “notoriously corrupt” leader “in the free world.” In the years since — with Nazarbayev taking 98 percent in the last presidential election, and with Kazakhstan now facing its first recession in nearly two decades — little has changed. If anything, Nazarbayev has reified a model that other autocrats have been eager to imitate. “Nazarbayev is the new normal; contemporary authoritarians are mostly kleptocrats,” Judah writes. “This means corruption is not a feature of their regimes, but rather the invariable nature of their rule.” Not only has Nazarbayev parked his funds in London’s property market, “but his wealth and that of his clique has been funneled out of the country by exploiting offshore networks. In the 21st century Nazarbayev is not the exception, but the norm; he is paradigmatic of the new authoritarians for whom there is no containment.” But it’s not simply that Nazarbayev’s regime has taken full advantage of the shadow-financing proffered by the West. If anything, Nazarbayev has bought in fully to the “wealth defense industry” pushed by Western actors, including bankers and accountants, lobbyists and public relations experts. To wit, Tony Blair’s role as an official adviser to Nazarbayev, which has only now begun wrapping up, allowed Astana to ignore anti-corruption advice from the West, resting fully upon the hypocrisy attendant in Blair’s presence in Kazakhstan. This comes in addition to the PR machine Kazakhstan has unleashed on both sides of the Atlantic, with Western firms eager to take Astana’s excess hydrocarbon funds to whitewash the country’s Soviet-era leadership. To be sure, while Nazarbayev stands as an exemplar of the expansive dictatorships taking advantage of Western financial and lobbying networks, Kazakhstan is but one of numerous autocracies detailed in the recent report. China, for instance, has seen its relationship with the West “warped by the dynamics of this shadow system,” Judah writes. “China is bleeding billions in illegally transferred funds… Today some $1 trillion dollars leaves China annually.” Meanwhile, the “most extreme and successful case of kleptocratic takeover to date was undertaken by Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, the head of a dictatorship that has ruled the country since 2003.” And according to one researcher — in one of the most remarkable stats throughout the entire report — more than half of Russia’s wealth remains squirreled offshore. Western systems of shell corporations and offshorization not only weaken the West’s soft power, but further entrench the nascent dictatorships mushrooming in place of failed efforts of democratization. While the United States is finally playing a bit of catch-up, elites throughout post-Soviet autocracies have proven over-eager to stash their funds abroad, instead of reinvesting their largesse in domestic industries. The systems, and the abuse therein, are clear. The time has come, as Judah writes, for the West “to reevaluate authoritarians like Nazarbayev.” Casey Michel, The Diplomat |
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