Some time ago, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) published the results of an investigation of the Credit Suisse bank accounts and foreign assets of high rank statesman and influential politicians from around the world.
Three Kazakhs were among those who had received the dubious honour to be the ‘heroes’ of this investigation. We are talking about President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and two close relatives of his predecessor at the presidential post Nursultan Nazarbayev - the latter’s eldest daughter Dariga Nazarbayeva and Timur Kulibayev, the husband of his second daughter Dinara.
The investigation was based on the information received from unknown sources. It contained the Credit Suisse documentation for the period of 1940s-mid-2010s.
Interestingly, as follows from the data available for the public, the ‘poorest’ (if one may say so) of the three ‘ caught in the act’ Kazakhs was Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, today’s highest-rank official of them all (read about it here in Russian and here in English).
As to the Mazhilis’ deputy Dariga Nazarbayeva, the assets she owns are much more valuable than those of the Kazakh President.
But, of course, Timur Kulibayev turned out to be the richest of them all. His bank balance and account flow surpass Tokayev’s by hundreds of times.
For reasons unknown, the OCCRP did not reveal the names of the companies belongings to or controlled by the aforementioned Kazakhs. Nor did it disclose the numbers of the bank accounts and the names of the people managing the funds, among other things, via signing the transfer orders. And this is unfortunate since, without this information, it is impossible to figure out the sources of Nadezhda Tokayeva’s, Dariga Nazarbayeva’s and Timur Kulibayev’s funds.
Meanwhile, we believe that today, after the events of January 2022 when Nazarbayev and his clan were forced to receed from the public view and are now trying very hard not to remind the Kazakhs citizens of themselves, the chances to figure out the truth have grown exponentially. And independent journalists now have the unique opportunity to do what the Kazakh law-enforcement system is incapable of doing - to find out the real sources of wealth of Nazarbayev himself as well as his closest relatives and allies.
Why do we think so? Because, even though the First President of Kazakhstan has made himself untouchable by the Kazakhstan law, it does not mean that the foreign states interested in investigating the instances of large-scale embezzlements and corruption on the part of high-rank statesmen of other countries, cannot bring them to justice on their soil. And confiscate what they have stolen or received as bribes.
Of the three persons mentioned in the OCCRP report - Nadezhda Tokayeva, Dariga Nazarbayeva and Timur Kulibayev - the last two seem to be the best candidates for a new investigation.
For instance, nine offshore business-structures controlled by Timur Kulibayev had Credit Suisse accounts. At the same time, all these accounts were opened after 2006 when, through his people, Nazarbayev started actively selling large Kazakh mining assets to foreign investors and approved the purchase of foreign assets on the funds of quasi-governmental companies.
It was after 2006 that Dariga Nazarbayeva and her then husband Rakhat Aliyev, Timur and Dinara Kulibayevs, Aliya Nazarbayeva, Bulat Utemuratov and a dozen of less high-profile people suddenly became multimillionaires with hundreds of millions of dollars, euros or pounds on their foreign bank accounts. It was then when they began purchasing high-end real estate and invest in foreign securities around the globe.
In 2007, apart from the notorious Sunninghill Park sold to him by Prince Andrew for £15 million instead of the initially requested 12 million, Timur Kulibayev bought three other real estate properties in London.
Below you will find a very curious correspondence from the Kazaword* extensive database.
*You will recall that, several years ago, the correspondence of high-rank Kazakh officials and statesmen was leaked on the Internet by unknown persons (hackers) and is now known under the name of Kazaword (click here for more information).
On July 6, 2007, Maria Sazonova, an employee of the Kazbisnessinvest company, emailed a request to the Transoil company’s Singapore office asking to send her the information on the transfers made to the Magwells UK legal firm whose owner and lifelong chairman was Paresh Kantilal Chohan.
Click here to see information about the company’s chairman and the company itself.
Maria Sazonova would often pop up in the Kazaword correspondence as a person managing the organisational issues for Timur Kulibayev and Karim Masimov. “Respublika” wrote about it back in 2011 relating the story about Karim Masimov’s real estate in Singapore (we will recall the intricacies of this case in a separate article).
In two hours, Maria received a reply in which the firm’s employee provided all the details regarding the amounts, dates and addressees of the transactions made from two Merix accounts in Swiss banks - credit account opened in Credit Suisse from the Handroxx credit account and current account opened in UBS AG.
On May 7, 2007, 1.520,000 was paid from the latter to the Unity Assets Corporation account as a payment for Sunninghill Park, the marital home of Duke of York (commonly known as Prince Andrew).
The houses and apartments were paid for via the Credit Swiss account.
The first tranche in the amount of 5 mln pounds (payment for the house located at 42, Reeves Mews) was sent to the Lynn Properties LTD account. The payment for the property at 42, Upper Grosvenor Street (later remodelled as a co-working) was sent to Vitala investment Holding.
The second tranche in the amount of 3.850,000 was sent on June 27, 2007, from the Credit Swiss account to Merix Intl Ventures ltd.
This was the VAT payment for the two houses purchased before – at 41, Upper Gronsvenor Street and at 41, Reeves Mews – situated next to the properties paid for via the first tranche.
Finally, the third tranche in the amount of 6,313,378.21 pounds was performed on July 7, 2007. The money was sent to the Motivan Investments Ltd account as the payment for the house at 27, Green Street, Mayfair famous for being the birthplace of Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond.
According to the Transoil, the total amount of the three tranches constituted 16,683,378.21. It looks like this money came to the account of the MAGWELLS legal company (a Merix service provider) and then was redistributed to the end accounts and addresses.
The letter sent from Paresh Chohan’s corporate address (mailto:PChohan@magwells.co.uk) to the Transoil Singapore on September 14, 2007, shows that the legal firm was but a “middleman” performing the role of a financial manager.
This time, it was about paying 14,087,356.47 pounds for Prince Andew’s Sunninghill Park. For this purpose, two sums were transferred to the London legal firm – 8,100,481.47 (from the Oilex company account) and 6,000,000.00 (from Enviro Pacific’s Hong Kong office).
The total amount transferred to the Magwells account constituted 14,125,481.47. It looks like a part of it remained there as the payment for the services.
Now then, we strongly suspect that the money Timur Kulibayev spent on the real estate in the UK was a part of the amount paid by KazMunaiGas NC to a Romanian businessman Dinu Patriciu.
You will recall that, of the $2.85 bln paid for Rompetrol, $1.1 bln went to Switzerland and our attempt to find out who was the end beneficiary made in 2012-2013 remained unsuccessful.
If today we could, by consolidated efforts, trace this money transiting through Timur Kulibayev’s companies, we would probably manage to bring him to justice outside the Kazakh borders.
FOR YOUR REFERENCE
The Sunday Times reporters had managed to trace the companies involved in completing the transaction (the purchase of Sunninnghill Park). The trace had led them to Timur Kulibayev married to Dinara, the second daughter of the then Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
According to the reporters, Unity Assets Corporation registered in the British Virgin Islands was listed as the new owner of Sunninghill Park. In June 2007, the parties exchanged the contracts; the transaction was completed in September and signed by Mark Briges (Farrer’s notary). This firm represents the Queen through Sir Alan Reid.
The leaks of the corporate documents from the Virgin Islands and Kazakhstan examined by the Sunday Times reporters had allowed to trance the connection from Unity to Kulibayev. The shareholders registers show that Unity belongs to Merix International Ventures. In its turn, Merix belongs to Kipros Ltd also registered in the Virgin Islands.
At the time of the investigation, Kipros belonged to Kipros LLP registered in Almaty. Starting from 2007, the Kazakh registration documents list Kulibayev as a major shareholder of the company that owned Kipros Ltd. In 2008, the ownership of the company was transferred to Kulibayev personally.
Read more in “The Secrets of Sunninghill Park” (text available in Russian).
This article is a common project of the Respublika journalists and the analysts of KZ.expert.
