Kassym-Jomart Tokayev seeks to distance himself from his powerful predecessor, whom many in Kazakhstan hold responsible for vast social inequalities. At the same time, the Tokayev family has its own foreign secrets: apartments in lakeside townhouses in Geneva, Moscow apartments, a Swiss bank account, and a money trail that leads offshore.
In recent weeks, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has been publicly speaking out against inequality.
Addressing the nation days after the protests were brutally suppressed by the police, he fueled a wave of popular anger against his predecessor, longtime authoritarian ruler Nursultan Nazarbayev.
“Thanks to the First President, Elbasy, a group of very profitable companies and a layer of people who are rich even by international standards have appeared in the country. I believe that the time has come to pay tribute to the people of Kazakhstan.”
Prior to the wave of protests and violence that rocked Kazakhstan in early January, even this mild criticism of Nazarbayev would have been unthinkable. But Tokayev seems to have picked up on the message of the people of Kazakhstan, who want change after three decades of oligarchy rule in a mineral-rich country. And he promised do it.
“As the head of state, I will continue the policy of political transformation and modernization of our society,” he said.
As it turned out, the Tokayev family had hidden wealth, safely stored in Europe since 1998, at a time when almost half of the population of Kazakhstan lived below the poverty line. A leaked data from Credit Suisse shows that in 1998 an account was opened in this Swiss bank for Tokayev’s then-wife Nadezhda and their 14-year-old son Timur, who at the time was attending an expensive boarding school in Geneva.
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About the project “Secrets of Credit Suisse”
“Credit Suisse Secrets” is a cross-border investigative journalism project based on the leaked bank accounts of Credit Suisse, the largest Swiss bank.
An anonymous source passed this information to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared it with OCCRP and 46 other partner media in different countries. Journalists on five continents studied bank files, spoke with insiders, controllers, investigators, and verified the findings with court records and financial reports. The leaks contain information about more than 18,000 accounts opened from the 1940s until about the mid-2010s. In total, more than a hundred billion dollars have been in these accounts.
“I am convinced that Swiss banking secrecy laws are immoral,” the statement accompanying the leak said. – The obligation to maintain confidentiality is just a cover for the Swiss banks in their shameful accomplice to tax evasion. The current system breeds corruption and deprives developing countries of much-needed taxes.”
Since the data from Credit Suisse that came to journalists is far from complete, they need to be interpreted taking into account several important nuances. Read more about the project, source of data, and key findings.
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How much money has passed through this account over the years of its existence is unknown. According to the leak, the maximum value was recorded in 2005 – 1.5 million Swiss francs (about $1 million).
Offshore service provider documents, corporate files and data from real estate registries show that the family continued to amass significant wealth outside of Kazakhstan in subsequent years. In 2012, after the bank account was closed, the Tokayevs opened offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands, which had their own accounts in Switzerland. These firms used to control companies in the UK, whose assets at one point in 2014 reached $5 million. Over the years, they also acquired property in Moscow and Geneva worth at least $7.7 million.
In the same years, Tokayev held the highest government positions, including the posts of Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prime Minister and Speaker of the Senate. Neither he nor his wife had a business or any other source of wealth that was known to the public. Only their son Timur was involved in real business, and even this deserves close attention. As reported Kazakh media, he was listed as a co-owner of an oil company that obtained lucrative rights to develop the oil field and later made millions. On that moment he was only 18 years old.
One of the few photos of Timur Tokayev, the son of the President of Kazakhstan. It was published on the Telegram channel of a popular commentator who also worked as an adviser to the Prime Minister.
Photo: yyedilov / Telegram
Timur could also initially connect the Tokaev family with Switzerland. How recently became knownhe attended College du Leman, one of the most expensive boarding schools in Geneva, and graduated from the US-accredited Webster University in Geneva.
The Tokayevs also purchased three apartments in and around Geneva, all in Timur’s name: one each in a quiet urban area, a townhouse overlooking a lake in the nearby municipality of Versoix, and a townhouse in the village of Saint-Prex.
Real estate of Timur Tokaev in Geneva. Photo by Edin Pasovic/Google Earth
Real estate of Timur Tokaev in Geneva. Photo by Edin Pasovic/Google Earth
Real estate of Timur Tokaev in Geneva. Photo by Edin Pasovic/Google Earth
Graphics: Edin Pasovic / Google Earth
It is not known how long Timur spent in Switzerland after graduation, but his father lived here while he served as Director General of the UN Office in Geneva from 2011 to 2013.
In the meantime, Timur was living in Moscow, reportedly driving around the Russian capital in a Lexus and a BMW with diplomatic plates and getting his degree from the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy.
He and his mother also owned several expensive apartments in Moscow. Curiously, as shown investigation Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, now in prison, the Russian government has erased all mention of them from the real estate register. (Navalny’s team discovered the Tokayevs’ holdings in data downloaded before they could be removed from the registries.)
Some of their properties have since been sold. The remaining real estate in Moscow includes a large apartment in the elite residential complex Fusion Park and another duplex apartment two kilometers from the Kremlin. Tokayev’s wife was also registered in another apartment in the northeast of the city.
Residential complex Fusion Park in Moscow, where Timur Tokaev has an apartment. Photo Google Street View
The secrets of the Tokayevs go beyond Europe. Thanks to documents from the Pandora Archive, a hoard of offshore service provider files shared with OCCRP by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, reporters were able to hit a trail that led them to the British Virgin Islands, a jurisdiction used by the wealthy to keep their assets secret.
In 2012, the year after the Tokayevs’ account with Credit Suisse was closed, the family set up two offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands: Wishing Well Group Inc, owned by Tokayev’s ex-wife, and Wisdom Invest & Finance Inc., which belonged to Timur. The only known activity of these firms seems to have been the ownership of a UK company, Edelweiss Resources LLP. (The data also shows that each of these offshore companies had their own Swiss bank account.)
Since Edelweiss only filed condensed financial statements, little is known about the company’s activities. But the latest March 2014 filing shows she had $4 million in cash in the bank and about $1 million in investments at the time.
In the summer of that same 2014, the Tokayevs took another step to hide their investments deeper. The Cypriot registration agent who handled their companies’ business asked its office in the British Virgin Islands to appoint nominee shareholders or intermediaries as owners of the firms, removing the Tokaevs from ownership, which would effectively hide their ownership. The request came in an email that was in the Pandora Archives. All three Tokayev companies have since been closed.
Kazakhstani civil servants are not required by law to make their declarations publicly available, leaving the source of millions of Tokaevs a mystery. The family did not respond to requests for comment.