Kazakh president’s clan is in the sights of the Swiss justice system

From InoPressa (by Agathe Duparc, Le Monde):

Despite the reception given to the all-powerful president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, in many countries, it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the corruption, which permeates his clan, Le Monde writes. In September 2010, the Swiss Justice Department launched an investigation into the president’s son-in-law, the billionaire Timur Kulibayev, who is the newly appointed head of the state fund Samruk Kazyna. Kulibayev is suspected of laundering huge funds in Switzerland, which he received from bribes and the illegal sales of oil and gas assets belonging to the state. The investigation was launched after a complaint was filed by five Kazakhs, whose identity has been kept secret. As a result, more than $600 million has been frozen in accounts at least three banks – Credit Suisse, UBS and BNP Paribas. According to Le Monde, at the end of July 2011 the Swiss prosecutors were presented with an additional complaint, which contains details of how President Nursultan Nazarbayev received $100 million for a deal with the Khabar state news agency; the deal was made by a Kazakh diplomat who works in Geneva.

Among the documents submitted to the Swiss law enforcement agencies, some of which were made public on the internet by Kulibayev’s implacable enemy, ex-banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, there is a notarized certificate of sale, stating that Nazarbayev on 4 May 2006 bought 78% of the Kazakh-Center TV company from Saule Tlevlesovaya, who is currently in Switzerland serving as a second secretary in Kazakhstan’s representative body to the United Nations. The complaint claims that she provided cover for Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter Dariga and her husband Rakhat Aliyev. In the late 1990s the couple became shareholders in the Khabar agency, receiving a 50% stake through two companies, including Kazakhstan-Center TV. When Aliyev was disgraced and fled to Vienna, Nazarbayev insisted that he returned his share. Dariga, however, retained her shares. In March 2008, the Nazarbayev’s stake of 49.9% was sold to the government for 100.3 million dollars; Visor Capital, a company controlled by Kulibayev, dealt with the placing of the shares on to the market.

The additional complaint contains new details of how in 2004 and 2005 Kulibayev, as the vice-president of the KazMunayGas company, sold the shares for nothing to companies controlled by his frontman Arvind Tiku, and how in October 2006 these shares were resold at a profit of 300 million. Some of this money ended up in the Geneva branch of BNP Paribas in the account of Oilex, a company also owned by Tiku.

Source: Le Monde

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