They forgave $ 7.5 billion and threw them into battle: Who is Mukhtar Ablyazov, who claims power in Kazakhstan

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Businessman and banker Ablyazov is called the main oppositionist in Kazakhstan. Security forces from different countries are hunting him, accusing him of scams worth billions of dollars. What is he famous for?

“Shal, ket!” (“Old man, go away!”) Many protesters in Kazakhstan came out in January with this very slogan, coined by Kazakhstan’s controversial oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov. The political organization “Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan” (DVK) created by him has been considered extremist in Kazakhstan since 2018. Despite the fact that Ablyazov always said he was a supporter of peaceful protest, in January Kazakhstan drowned in blood. At the same time, the protesters received instructions from the Kiev headquarters of the DCK.

The 58-year-old Ablyazov himself denies that the DCK provoked armed unrest, but is already preparing to sit on the Kazakh throne, as the oligarch told RIA Novosti, warning about the consequences of the wrong position of the Europeans:

– I addressed personally to Macron. I warned the Western countries that if they take a wait-and-see attitude, then Central Asia will be a bigger pot than Afghanistan.

Ablyazov has been given full carte blanche: last week, the Paris Court of Appeal dismissed a nearly 13-year-old money laundering and breach of trust case against Ablyazov. The French have forgiven him over $7.5 billion believed to have been stolen from Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine due to the statute of limitations. Now he can redirect his seething energy to the battle for freedom and democracy in his native country, which, in fact, he did in exile.

Consistent Westerner

Mukhtar Kabulovich Ablyazov was born in the south of Kazakhstan in the village of Vannovka in 1963. He began his protest activity back in 1986 during the December speech of youth against the Soviet authorities, for which he even had to “suffer” – he was transferred from the Kazakh State University (KSU) to the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI), which Ablyazov graduated from in the same year as a theoretical physicist. After graduation, he returned to KSU, where he was engaged in scientific activities.

Mukhtar Ablyazov. Photo © TASS / AP / Alexander Turnbull

With the collapse of the Union, Ablyazov plunged headlong into business, where he quickly achieved great success. Starting with a small enterprise “Madina” (it is interesting that he registered the first business in Russia), Ablyazov sold computers and printers, but already in 1992 he founded “Astana-Holding”, working in the field of food supplies.

In 1997, Ablyazov became the president of the electric grid company KEGOC, and in 1998, Astana Holding acquired Bank Turan Alem, later renamed BTA Bank, at a privatization auction for $72 million. This organization is a backbone for Kazakhstan. Therefore, Ablyazov’s departure to politics looks logical – in the same year he took the post of Minister of Energy, Industry and Trade of Kazakhstan. By then, with a net worth of $300 million, the 35-year-old Ablyazov had become one of the richest men in the country.

However, the very next year, the banker left the government and stood in opposition to President Nursultan Nazarbayev. In November 2001, Ablyazov with like-minded people (the most influential was the akim – governor – of Pavlodar region Galymzhan Zhakiyanov) established the political organization “Democratic Choice of Kazakhstan”, which called for the decentralization of political power, a strong legislative power and an independent judiciary. In October 2002, a DCK rally took place in Alma-Ata, in which, according to various estimates, from 2,000 to 5,000 protesters took part.

In March 2002, Mukhtar Ablyazov was arrested, but already in May of the following year, Nazarbayev, under pressure from the European Parliament and Western human rights organizations, pardoned him, releasing him from further serving his sentence. After his release, Ablyazov moved to Moscow and focused on the development of BTA Bank. In 2008, under the leadership of Ablyazov, BTA Bank became the largest financial institution in the country and the leader in its lending (30% of all loans). However, Ablyazov also spent millions of dollars funding opposition groups and independent media.

Accusations of stealing billions of dollars

The contradictions between the oppositionist and the government grew, and in 2009 the nationalization of BTA Bank was announced. It is interesting that today the “nationalized” BTA-Bank, according to the SPARK database, continues to operate successfully and is 100% owned by the Kazakh oligarch Kenes Rakishev.

© SPARK

At the same time, Ablyazov was accused of fraud with land near Moscow, in which he participated as the owner and chairman of the board of directors of BTA Bank from 2005 to 2008. Criminal cases against him were initiated not only in Kazakhstan, but also in Russia and Ukraine, where BTA-Bank had broad business interests.

The investigation imputed to him the theft of about 6 billion dollars, or 58 billion rubles. For example, according to the investigation, BTA-Bank gave five offshore companies $200 million each to buy land in the Domodedovo district. Ablyazov planned to build a “Russian Oxford” and a “Russian Hollywood” there. As a result, only $150 million was spent on the purchase of the plots, and the rest of the money vanished into thin air.

According to the investigation, the oligarch created a shadow bank within BTA that manages the issuance of loans, Russian commercial real estate and a land bank. In Russia, the case of embezzlement of BTA-Bank funds amounted to about 400 volumes. According to the materials of the investigation, from May 2006 to January 2009, the banker organized a scheme for obtaining large loans from the bank for companies controlled by him, for which hundreds of hectares of land were purchased in Domodedovo, Podolsky and Mytishchi districts. Several of Ablyazov’s accomplices in Russia have already received lengthy prison terms in this case. In December 2020, the Tagansky District Court of Moscow sentenced Ablyazov in absentia to 15 years in prison.

Photo © Shutterstock

Banker in exile

After the case was opened, Ablyazov hurriedly left Kazakhstan, calling the charges “politically motivated.” He was put on the wanted list by law enforcement officers from three countries at once – Russia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. He appeared in different countries of Europe, where he lived on the passport of the Central African Republic. All his numerous relatives had the same passports. According to Life’s source, these passports were illegally acquired using a fake Kyrgyz ID-card.

After a long period of adventurous wanderings, the banker settled in London, from where he continued to finance the Kazakh opposition. For example, his money covered the 2011 riots in the western city of Zhanaozen. At the same time, the oppositionist Ablyazov lived in grand style, and did not want to pay taxes. English judges therefore found him guilty of contempt of court and falsification of evidence, sentencing him to 22 months in jail for failing to disclose assets, including a nine-bedroom mansion in London’s Billionaire Row and a 100-acre estate in Windsor Great Park. Ablyazov also rented a 15,000-square-foot mansion on Bishop Avenue in London.

The “consistent Westernizer” Ablyazov fled from British justice, as well as from Kazakhstan, and moved to France. In his interviews, he explained his escape by saying that he would have served his sentence, but he allegedly received information that the KNB was going to kill him in the dungeons, and therefore fled.

Photo © TASS / AP / Thibault Camus

French police detained Ablyazov in 2013 in the village of Mouan Sartoux, not far from the city of Grasse. The lawyer said that at the request of Russia. He was held in custody until December 2016. Russia sought his extradition, but Ablyazov, with the help of European human rights activists, convinced the court that extradition would expose him to the risk of ill-treatment and an unfair trial.

In the meantime, new details of Ablyazov’s criminal activities have come to light in Kazakhstan. In 2004, during the hunt for wolves, the chairman of the board of BTA-Bank, Yerzhan Tatishev, died suddenly, after which the bank was headed by Ablyazov. In 2017, Muratkhan Tokmadi, who fired the fatal shot, unexpectedly announced on the air of the KTK TV channel that he had shot Tatishev allegedly on the order of Ablyazov. Tokmadi confirmed all this in court. At that time he was in prison. The accused’s wife, Jamilya Aimbetova-Tokmadi, reported on the Internet that her husband was being tortured in the dungeons.

In June 2017, a Kazakh court found the banker guilty of creating a criminal community and embezzling funds from BTA Bank and sentenced him in absentia to 20 years in prison with confiscation of property. In October 2020, Ablyazov was also charged with breach of trust and aggravated money laundering by a Paris court. The banker remained at large, having paid a bail of half a million dollars.