Category: ARTICLES

Exchanges indicate staff at listed group were asked to make holiday arrangements for top officials in London and Paris

The Financial Times previously reported that in 2011 Kazakhmys organised for the family of Kazakhstan’s then PM Karim Massimov, pictured, to fly to France by private jet, visit Disneyland Paris and stay at the George V hotel © FT montage; Getty, Bloomberg

Fresh evidence has emerged indicating staff at a London-listed mining company made personal holiday arrangements for the rulers of Kazakhstan, where it owns lucrative copper rights.In September, the Financial Times reported that in 2011 Kazakhmys organised for the family of Kazakhstan’s then prime minister Karim Massimov to fly to France by private jet, visit Disneyland Paris and stay at the George V hotel, triggering scrutiny under the UK’s anti-bribery law. The Serious Fraud Office said it was “aware of the allegations” but declined to comment further.

Now an email exchange seen by the FT reveals that two years later the same Kazakh official sent instructions to the company’s boss regarding a trip to London. By then, Mr Massimov had become chief of staff to Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev.

The new questions these emails raise about whether the company — which has since been renamed Kaz Minerals — broke UK anti-corruption laws come as its billionaire founder, Vladimir Kim, leads a £3bn bid to take it private again 15 years after its London listing.

In November 2013, an aide to Mr Massimov wrote to Eduard Ogay, the executive director at Kazakhmys who had in 2011 taken instructions on the Paris trip. This time, the aide explained, the Massimovs wanted to go to London. He told Mr Ogay to arrange a hotel, transport and “cultural programme” for the family. Both used personal email addresses in the exchange of messages, which were part of a large online leak in 2014 but have only now come to light.

One of the emails suggests Mr Massimov may have called off the London trip. But, as with the messages discussing the 2011 holiday, the exchange suggests such instructions from a top Kazakh official to the head of a UK public company were routine.

The company said it had investigated the 2011 episode — a trip worth some $100,000 — and “found no evidence of payment by the company (or by any of its employees)” for the holiday, but did not establish who did pay for it.

On the 2013 exchange, the company said: “We have not seen any of the private email correspondence in question and have no evidence of company time or resources being involved.”

The FT has also seen a £30,000 bill for a 2006 stay by Mr Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan at the time, at the Lanesborough hotel on Hyde Park Corner in London that was sent to the company. The company said it “made a legitimate contribution to an official presidential visit to the UK in 2006, which included a visit to Kazakhmys’ offices in London”.

Tom Mayne, a Kazakhstan expert who uncovered the 2006 Lanesborough bill, said that in the ex-Soviet republic some businesses — known as “pocket companies” — were “required to pay for whatever top government officials require”. He said the holiday instructions “raise questions about what was known by the company’s British managers and auditors, and how far the company went in trying to please Kazakh leaders”.

Britain’s Serious Fraud Office has obtained emails showing that the prime minister of Kazakhstan was taken on a luxury trip to Disneyland Paris by mining oligarchs.

Staff at a multi-billion dollar mining company, which operated lucrative copper mines in Kazakhstan and was publicly listed on the London Stock Exchange, organized a $100,000 luxury trip to Disneyland Paris via private jet for the family of the prime minister of Kazakhstan.

The mining company, Kazakhmys, could now be investigated over the affair by Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, after leaked emails were flagged to the SFO by Kazakh dissidents. Although Kazakhmys does not deny having been involved in the organization of the trip, it says it can find no record that it paid for it.

The chain of emails from 2011 in which Kazakhmys, whose mining operations exclusively occurred in Kazakhstan, communicated with the office of Karim Massimov, the then-prime minister of Kazakhstan, are detailed in a new book, Kleptopia, by investigative reporter Tom Burgis.

Last week The Daily Beast reported on another astonishing tale in the book that involved two businessmen with connections to another Kazakh mining firm being found dead in a La Quinta motel while on a Route 66 road trip.

Speaking about the Kazakhmys affair, Burgis told The Daily Beast: “Clearly there are more questions that need answering. The biggest of which is: What is a mining company doing organizing a luxury holiday for the family of one of the most powerful men in the repressive regime that controls the country where it makes its money?”

The arrangements have now been brought to the attention of Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, according to a report by Burgis in London’s Financial Times newspaper.

In his book, Burgis writes that on July 1, 2011 (by chance the same day that a new law against bribery came into force in the U.K.), an aide to Karim Massimov, then-prime minister of Kazakhstan (now head of the country’s successor to the KGB, the KNB) who is a close ally of the country’s president, sent an email to Eduard Ogay, a senior executive at Kazakhmys.

Burgis writes that the email was written “as if addressed not to an important business executive but to a travel agent.”

The email read in part that “the chief,” by whom the aide meant Massimov, “has assigned me to work with you on the departure of his family of 4 people to Paris.”

The aide, Burgis writes, spoke to Massimov’s wife “to ascertain her wishes. For the trip, a top-notch plane—a twelve-seater to be sure it wasn’t too small. Then a couple of days at Disneyland Paris and four or five nights at the George V off the Champs-Élysées. And a car, probably a minibus.”

Functionaries at Kazakhmys, which was the biggest miner of Kazakhstan’s extensive copper reserves, “duly made the arrangements,” Burgis says.

The 2011 emails, leaked as part of a massive data dump of hacked emails, were subsequently flagged by Kazakh dissidents to the SFO, where they are believed to have now triggered scrutiny under the U.K.’s strict anti-bribery legislation.

After floating in London in 2005, Kazakhmys became one of the U.K.’s most valuable companies, with a market capitalization of up to $10 billion at its peak.

It has since been renamed Kaz Minerals and various aspects of the business have been spun off into separate entities.

A spokesman for Kaz Minerals told the FT the company had conducted “a thorough review of all available correspondence and financial records as soon as it became aware of this matter. This review, since which no new information has come to light, found no evidence of payment by the company (or by any of its employees) for these travel arrangements, and no evidence of a request for, or expectation of, payment by the company or by any of its employees for these travel arrangements.”

The SFO told the FT, “We are aware of the allegations but can provide no further comment.”

Open electronic platforms for creating and promoting social and socio-political initiatives, as well as filing civil petitions – Change.org and Avaaz.org – are blocked in Kazakhstan.

NUR-SULTAN, August 19, 2016, 17:03 – REGNUM Two open electronic platforms for creating and promoting social and socio-political initiatives, as well as filing civil petitions – Change.org and Avaaz.org – are blocked in Kazakhstan.

According to civil activist Inga Imanbay, she posted on these sites a petition for the resignation of Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Karim Massimov. On the afternoon of August 15, a large number of users signed a petition on Change.org, but after lunch, the petition has become unavailable.

According to another civil activist, Zhanbolat Mamai, the authors of the petition asked the administrators of the Change.org to explain why the petition was blocked. The response received from the administration of the platform states that: “no one blocked the petition”. However, since August 15, not only the petition itself, but also the entire Change.org website has been unavailable.

Inga Imanbay advised all those want the prime minister’s resignation to sign a similar petition on another platform – Avaaz.org. However, as a REGNUM correspondent was convinced, this site is also unavailable.

“We did not apply to Kazakhtelecom (the largest telecommunications company in Kazakhstan, has the status of a national telecom operator – note by IA REGNUM), since we already had such experience, – there will be no answer from them. Therefore, we tried to spread the petition through social networks. Now it is clear that about ten thousand votes have been collected for the resignation of Karim Massimov and signatures are still being collected” – Imanbai said in an interview with Radio Azattyk (Azattyk is the Kazakhstani edition of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty – note by REGNUM).

As for the petition itself, it says that Karim Massimov has been leading the government of Kazakhstan for seven years. However, he failed to achieve any positive changes in the economy.

“The years of Masimov’s premiership are a time of failures. During Masimov’s premiership, the tenge (the national currency of Kazakhstan – REGNUM news agency) has fallen in price three times in relation to the main world currencies! In 2007, 1 dollar cost 120 tenge (25 rubles). Now the dollar exchange rate is 350 tenge (70 rubles). Massimov’s government, using high oil prices, blow off huge sums of money on unnecessary projects. It is planned to spend about $1.5 billion (97.5 billion rubles) on EXPO-2017. Moreover, 15 billion tenge (3 billion rubles) will come from the pension savings of Kazakhstanis. Billions of dollars were spent on saving BTA Bank, and then on legal and other prosecutions of ex-banker Mukhtar Ablyazov. One of the main initiators of the collapse of the largest bank is Prime Minister Masimov,” the petition says.

It also notes that Karim Massimov not only did nothing good for the country’s economy, but also discredited Kazakhstan in the world.

The authors of the petition write: “In France, he is suspected of taking a bribe from Airbus in the amount of 12 million euros (483.9 million rubles at the exchange rate for 2010). The French prosecutor’s office is investigating this case – we will probably soon find out many more details about the suspicious activities of the Kazakhstan prime minister. In democratic states, even the suspicion of an official of taking a bribe leads to high-profile investigations and the immediate resignation. Massimov, despite the international scandal with his participation, never resigned and continues to pretend that nothing happened”.

They did not forget to blame the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan for his sudden PR campaign. We are talking about Massimov’s appeal to the head of the Russian government, Dmitry Medvedev, with a request to return to Kazakhstan the skulls of national heroes – Kenesary Khan and Keiki Batyr.

The initiators of the resignation of the prime minister explain: “Masimov proved that he is not against outright lies for the sake of momentary PR. The other day, he announced that at a meeting with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, he raised the question of returning the remains of Kenesary Khan and Keiki Batyr. “According to the official information of the Kazakh side, Medvedev, in response to Massimov’s request to transfer the remains of national heroes to their homeland for burial, “promised to sort out and give the necessary instructions.” But the Russian government does not confirm the information that the prime minister of Kazakhstan raised the question of transferring the remains of the last Kazakh khan, Kenesary Khan. (…) Trying to gain political points by playing on national feelings and manipulating the remains of historical heroes is not good for the prime minister. Deceiving society, misleading people is even worse. This is not the first time when a mismatch between the words and actions of Karim Massimov is revealed”.

They note that every day of Karim Massimov’s premiership is costly to the economy and the international image of the state. Therefore, the authors of the petition believe, Karim Massimov must immediately leave the post of head of government.

The authors of the petition summarize: “It is necessary, without delay, to start a campaign for the resignation of Massimov, who discredited himself and the country as prime minister. Recently, Karim Massimov launched a hashtag with the words “25 years of independence”. It’s time for us to say: 25 years of Independence without the government of Massimov”.

Recall, according to Kazakh political scientist Daniyar Ashimbaev, the coming autumn does not promise anything good for Prime Minister Massimov.

Ashimbaev predicts “Traditionally, every autumn we expect a change of government. The expectation factor for Massimov’s departure is intensifying, and rumors are circulating behind the scenes that there will be a major changes in the government. The political tug-of-war has already begun – compromising evidence on some high-ranking officials is already being made public. It is possible that soon we will see a scenario where a vote of no confidence in the government will be played”.

The Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Karim Massimov is suspected of taking a bribe in the amount of €12 million from Airbus Company. The Kazakh media reported with reference to Mediapart.

According to them, the French prosecutor’s office is investigating several cases against the Franco-German giant in aerospace and defense industry Airbus Group and supposes that in 2010 the top managers of the company have transferred to the accounts of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Karim Masimov, €12 million for assistance in the purchase by Kazakhstan 45 French helicopters totaling € 2 billion.

“The French financial Prosecutor’s Office started investigation of Airbus operations in the Republic of Kazakhstan in 2013, and in February 2016 the case was expanded after a series of searches in the homes of some of the company’s top managers on additional articles of the charges -” bribery of foreign public officials, misuse of financial assets of the company, concealment of the data.” The case is being investigated within other cases related to the sale of satellites and Airbus helicopters in Kazakhstan during the period from 2009 to 2011 under Nicolas Sarkozy as president of this country. The names are not disclosed for legal reasons,” the media says.

French courts officially charged Airbus Group (the former EADS) with corruption.

Multimillionaire Aigul Nuriyeva “on parcels” with the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan

Of the people close to the head of the Kazakh government, the most famous are his father Kazhimkan Kasymovich Massimov, CEO of the Masimov Health Center, and businessman Aigul Nuriyeva, ranked 7th in the ranking of the richest Kazakhstanis according to Forbes-Kazakhstan magazine. Assumption: that everything that Aigul Nuriyeva manages, she may have received in trust from Karim Massimov.

Nurakhmet Kenzheev

Of the persons close to the head of the Kazakh government that we have not yet mentioned in the Massimov Saga, the most famous are his father Kazhimkan Kasymovich Massimov, the CEO of the Masimov Health Center, and businessman Aigul Nuriyeva, who occupies the 7th place in the ranking of the richest Kazakhstanis in terms of version of Forbes-Kazakhstan magazine.

As for the first character, we can only sympathize with the head of government. But we will not pay much attention to Kazhimkan Kasymovich: those who wish can easily find enough information on the Internet about his adventures, regalia, talents and everything else. We only note that Karim Kazhimkanovich is regularly informed about what his father is doing. He is mainly engaged in the fact that he is trying to earn / get as much money as possible, no matter in what way.

Kazhimkan Massimov

For example, on November 16, 2013, Karzhanov Bauyrzhan Bazarbekovich from the national company KazTransGas sent a message to Talant Muratbaev with the following content: “Good afternoon. On behalf of Dzhamanbekov Almaz Melsovich, I am sending you a letter. Sincerely, Bauyrzhan Karzhanov. Tel. +7 7172 55 23 13.

This letter was sent by Kazhimkan Masimov as the head of the Nurly El fund.

We have no doubt that JSC “KazTransGas” in the end politely refused the father of the Kazakh Prime Minister, moreover, on his direct order. Indeed, otherwise Karim Massimov would have to justify himself to the head of state every day – his father has too much energy and persistence, but there is clearly not enough flexibility and understanding of the situation.

Therefore, let us move on to another character – Aigul Nuriyeva. It is worth pointing out right now that in the mail of the trusted assistant of the second person after the Elbasy in Kazakhstan there is no evidence that she is connected with Karim Massimov not only by business, but also by personal relations. Therefore, we will assume that gossips on this topic is the work of envious people of the head of the Kazakh government.

[Respublika, 07.12.2010, “Order or game of Aigul Nuriyeva?”: If you don’t know who Aigul Nuriyeva is, then, according to the site www.geokz.tv, “Aigul Maratovna Nuriyeva is a confidant of Karim Massimov. 34 years. Daughter of Marat Nuriev, Rector of the Almaty Academy of Economics and Statistics. Places of employment: ABN Amro Bank, Halyk Savings Bank and Credit Suisse Bank, KazTransOil, Air Astana and KazMunayGas. She also worked as an independent director of Kazinvestbank, Kazkommertsbank, Kazakhtelecom and Sat&Company. In addition, Aigul M. Nuriyeva is the head of the Alnair investment group, which includes Alnair Capital Holding. The latter, by the way, bought out stake in two large second-tier banks of Kazakhstan – Kazkommertsbank and Halyk Bank of Kazakhstan, and she patronized by the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan himself.” – note by K.ru]

[CNews.ru, December 29, 2012, “TeliaSonera paid $200 million to the people of the ex-premier of Kazakhstan”: TeliaSonera bought telecommunications assets from two Kazakh businessmen, Aigul Nuriyeva and Raushan Sagdiyeva, for $205 million. Both women previously worked with the ex-premier of the republic Karim Masimov. Nuriyeva is also a local partner of Tele2, TeliaSonera’s main competitor. […]

She led the investment companies Bodam and Alnair Capital Holdings, which own minority stakes in Kazkomertsbank and the fixed-line monopoly Kazakhtelecom, respectively. Nuriyeva, through Bodam, also owns a 49% stake in the third largest mobile operator in Kazakhstan, Mobile Telecom Service. Control in this operator belongs to the Swedish Tele2, the main competitor of TeliaSonera in the home market. – Inset K.ru]

Aigul Nuriyeva

However, the fact that Mrs. Nuriyeva is corresponding with Talant Muratbaev and through him with Karim Kazhimkanovich himself, and not on the issues of saving Kazkommertsbank or investing millions of dollars, is thought provoking.

For example, on November 9, 2012, Aigul Nuriyeva wrote a note to Talant Muratbaev that begins “Hello! In addition to the bike, there are 2 more options: 1. Elliptical machine…”

This seems to be about a technique for maintaining the physical condition of their common boss, Karim Kazhimkanovich. That is, the owner at the time of writing a fortune of $ 720 million is engaged in the same humble business as other servants from Massimov’s entourage – satisfies his current needs.

Nothing has changed two years later. On August 28, 2014, the head of the Kazakh government sent a link to iWatch to his trusted assistant, who, in turn, immediately forwarded the head’s wishes to Ms. Nuriyeva. As we understand it, for execution.

From all this, one conclusion and one assumption can be made. Conclusion: that the rich also cry, and primarily because of their relatives, which cannot be re-educated, nor convinced, nor pacified. Assumption: that everything that Aigul Nuriyeva manages, she may have received in trust from Karim Massimov.

Because if you can entrust the owner of an almost billion-dollar fortune with the task of purchasing an electronic gadget for you, this means either that you are dozens of times richer than her, or that she somehow depends on you, or that she is just a frontman, behind a skirt which the real owner hides. In our opinion, it simply cannot be otherwise in Kazakhstan. But maybe we are wrong?

TeliaSonera paid more than $200 million to the people of the ex-premier of Kazakhstan in a deal with telecom assets in the country – media.

“The Swedish-Finnish telecommunications company TeliaSonera announced the completion of a deal to acquire two telecommunications companies in Kazakhstan: the WiMAX assets of the Alem Communications holding and a 20% stake in the backbone operator Kaztranscom. The first of these assets was purchased for $170 million. The seller was Midas Telecom, owned by entrepreneur Aigul Nuriyeva. The amount of the second transaction was $35 million, Raushan Sagdiyeva sold her share through the Alatau Company,” the publication says.

In addition, a CNews source in the telecom market of Kazakhstan claims that A. Nuriyeva is a confidant of K. Massimov.

Wrote about it: KazTAG, Kazakh Telegraph Agency, www.kaztag.kz

https://kaztag.kz/ru/news/teliasonera-zaplatila-bolee-200-mln-lyudyam-eks-premera-kazakhstana-po-sdelke-s-telekom-aktivami-v-strane-smi

Almaty. January 3rd KazTAG – The Swedish-Finnish telecommunications company TeliaSonera has completed a $205 million deal to acquire 2 companies in Kazakhstan: WiMAX assets of the Alem Communications holding and a 20% stake in the backbone operator Kaztranscom, – according to publication on the CNews.ru.

The publication says: “The Swedish-Finnish telecommunications company TeliaSonera announced the completion of a deal to acquire two telecommunications companies in Kazakhstan: the WiMAX assets of the Alem Communications holding and a 20% stake in the backbone operator Kaztranscom. The first of these assets was purchased for $170 million. The seller was Midas Telecom, owned by entrepreneur Aigul Nuriyeva. The amount of the second transaction was $35 million, Raushan Sagdiyeva sold her share through the Alatau company”.

The media explains that R. Sagdiyeva and A. Nuriyeva previously worked together at the Halyk Bank of Kazakhstan, when Karim Masimov led it.

The publication recalls: “In 2000, he left the bank for the government, first taking the post of Minister of Transport and Communications, then Deputy Prime Minister, and in 2007 he became Prime Minister. This autumn, K. Massimov moved to the post of the head of the administration of the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev”.

In addition, a CNews source in the telecom market of Kazakhstan claims that A. Nuriyeva is a confidant of K. Massimov. The publication writes that TeliaSonera hopes for sellers’ lobbying opportunities.

Meanwhile, the publication says that the representative of TeliaSonera, according to his statement, “does not know anything about the participation of the ex-premier of Kazakhstan in these transactions”.

The report claims: “…Although the two assets acquired by TeliaSonera have different sellers, the transactions are interconnected. According to the investment prospectus of the Kazakh cellular operator Kcell (controlled by TeliaSonera), the condition for the purchase of Alem Communications’ WiMAX assets is the acquisition of a stake in Kaztranscom”.

The condition set by the buyer is the development by the government of Kazakhstan of a plan for the distribution of LTE resources. Currently, only the state-controlled Kazakhtelecom has permission to work in LTE, although both Kcell and KaR-Tel (a subsidiary of Vimpelcom) tested this technology back in 2010.

It is also reported that TeliaSonera is acquiring assets in order to strengthen Kcell’s position in the mobile Internet market. The parties have agreed that TeliaSonera will be able to oblige Kcell to buy out these companies, and Kcell, in turn, to oblige them to sell them to him. Alem Communications currently serves about 75,000 WiMAX subscribers. This technology has already lost its perspectives; however, the holding frequencies are in the range of 2.5-2.7 GHz, which allows them to be used under LTE as well. Kaztranscom is needed to ensure the possibility of passing Internet traffic; as part of the deal, Kcell received the right to use its fiber-optic network for 5 years.

Legally, these transactions looked like this. TeliaSonera acquired Kaznet Media, which, in turn, bought Aksoran and Instafon from Alem Communications, which own WiMAX frequencies. Alem Communications also retains the second largest cable television operator in Kazakhstan, Digital TV.

In the case of Kaztranscom, TeliaSonera acquired a 25% stake in Rodnik, which owns 80% of the backbone operator. That is, according to CNews.ru, the Scandinavians indirectly received a 20% stake in Kaztranscom. At the same time, TeliaSonera entered into a buyout option the remaining 75% of the operator’s shares.

The publication reports biographical details: R. Sagdieva is the daughter of the former speaker of the Supreme Council of the Kazakh SSR Maktai Sagdiyev. Now she is the deputy general director of the Mercury Company. A. Nuriyeva is the daughter of the rector of the Almaty Academy of Economics and Statistics Marat Nuriyev. She leads the investment companies Bodam and Alnair Capital Holdings, which own minority stakes in Kazkommertsbank and the fixed-line monopoly Kazakhtelecom, respectively.

It is indicated that A. Nuriyeva also owns 49% of the shares in the third largest mobile operator in Kazakhstan, Mobile Telecom Service, through Bodam. Control in this operator belongs to the Swedish Tele2, TeliaSonera’s main competitor in the domestic market.

At the same time, the publication writes that this is not the first case for TeliaSonera in Central Asia when it has to deal with competitors’ partners. For example, in Uzbekistan, fashion designer Gayane Avakyan became a co-owner of the cellular operator Coscom acquired by the Scandinavians, who at the same time owned a stake in the competing company Unitel (a subsidiary of Vimpelcom). It is believed that G. Avakyan acts in the interests of the daughter of the President of Uzbekistan Gulnara Karimova.

How the Massimov family visited Paris and why it led to an investigation in Britain

A trip to Paris by the family of former Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov, who now heads a powerful intelligence agency, has come under the close attention of British investigators investigating an alleged corruption case, according to Western media. According to the Financial Times, the cost of the Masimovs’ trip to Paris can be estimated at about $100,000.

Wrote about it: Radio Azattyk, https://rus.azattyq.org/

https://rus.azattyq.org/a/kazakhstan-press-review-masimovs-trip-sparks-international-corruption-probe/30834771.html

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A trip to Paris by the family of former Kazakh Prime Minister Karim Massimov, who now heads a powerful intelligence agency, has come under the close attention of British investigators investigating an alleged corruption case, Western media reported this week. The international press also reports that China has made progress in negotiations to buy uranium deposits in Kazakhstan, and reports about filming sequel movie about fictional journalist Borat Sagdiev in the United States, the first film of which angered Kazakh authorities.

SEE PARIS AND… FIND YOURSELF IN THE CENTER OF THE INVESTIGATION

“British mining group organized a trip to Paris for the family of the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan.” In an article with the same headline, the London-based Financial Times reports on a UK investigation centered on Kazakhmys, a non-ferrous metal mining company in the Central Asian country, and Karim Masimov, Kazakhstan’s ex-premier and current head of the national security committee.

As follows from the publication, in 2011, when Massimov led the government, Kazakhmys organized a trip for his family members to France: provided a private jet, arranged a visit to Disneyland and took care of staying at a hotel in a prestigious area of ​​Paris. The UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) as an alleged case of corruption is now investigating the trip. It launched an investigation after receiving emails between Massimov’s aide and Kazakhmys employees, reports the Financial Times. It is reported that letters received, most likely through hacking of mailboxes, were handed over to British investigators by an unnamed “dissident from Kazakhstan”.

Prime Minister Karim Massimov (right) and then President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev (center) at the congress of the Nur Otan ruling party. March 11, 2015.

The SFO is investigating the case because London-listed Kazakhmys is subject to UK bribery law, which makes it a crime to provide any advantage or benefit to a foreign public official to advance business interests. The law went into effect on July 1, 2011, and ironically, it was on that date that Massimov’s assistant sent an email to the then executive director of Kazakhmys, Eduard Ogay, stating the special travel requirements for members of his “boss’s” family. They included “the best 12-seat aircraft” and three connecting hotel rooms.

Employees of Kazakhmys fulfilled the wishes of customers, writes the Financial Times, noting that the cost of the Masimovs’ trip to Paris can be estimated at about $100,000.

The publication emphasizes that Kazakhmys is the largest copper producer in Kazakhstan, and the company’s business depends on the “favor of the Kazakh regime”. Kazakhmys entered the London Stock Exchange in 2005, in 2014 the group was reorganized into two companies – the public KAZ Minerals PLC and the non-public Kazakhmys Corporation LLP. Their owner is Vladimir Kim, the richest person in Kazakhstan (according to the American magazine Forbes).

Vladimir Kim, President of Kazakhmys Corporation.

The British newspaper notes that Kaz Minerals PLC press secretary said the company had conducted “a thorough review of all available correspondence and financial records” but the review allegedly “found no evidence of payment by the company (or any of its employees) for these trips”. A press secretary said the company did not know who paid for the trip and why its employees were asked to arrange it. He refused to say whether an investigation had been carried out and have there been other cases when employees providing services to government officials.

Two leading UK lawyers who work on corruption cases said they are waiting for more details from SFO investigators. Even if the company did not pay for the Masimovs’ vacation, its employees still waste their time to organizing the trip, lawyers emphasize, adding that the investigation is unlikely to be limited to just one episode with a trip to Paris. If it does turn out that Kazakhmys or its representatives financed the trip, “it could be considered bribing a government official”, says lawyer and former prosecutor Ruby Hamid.

The SFO did not comment in detail about the investigation. The agency noted that “although any gift or favor could be considered a bribe”, prosecution decisions are only can be made if there is enough evidence and the public interest “taking into account all the circumstances”, – the newspaper wrote.

Karim Massimov, 55, who has served as chairman of the national security committee since September 2016, did not respond to a request for comment. Masimov twice served as Prime Minister of Kazakhstan (from 2007 to 2012, from 2014 to 2016), worked as the head of the Presidential Administration of Kazakhstan (2012-2014). Since his appointment as head of the intelligence service, Masimov rarely appears in the public arena and does not make any statements. The Twitter account of the top official (who once wrote a lot on the microblog) has rarely been updated in the past four years. According to open sources, Karim Masimov and his wife Dilyaram Masimova (Mashurova) have three children – two daughters and a son.

The Massimovs’ trip to Paris was also reported this week by the American edition of the Daily Beast in the publication “Trip to Disneyland for 100 thousand dollars led to an international anti-corruption investigation”.

The publication writes that the correspondence between Kazakhmys, a metal mining company in Kazakhstan, and Karim Massimov’s office is detailed in a new book, “Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Conquers the World”, by investigative journalist Tom Burgis. The journalist notes that the letter from Massimov’s assistant to Eduard Ogay was written in such a way “as if it was addressed not to the head of an important business, but to a travel agent”. The clerk writes that he spoke with Massimov’s wife and clarified her requests, which included a private jet, a couple of days in Disneyland Paris and four or five nights in a hotel near the Champs Elysees. According to Burgis, Kazakhmys employees did “everything necessary”.

In a commentary to the Daily Beast, Burgis says the biggest question is “what exactly is a mining company doing, organizing a luxury vacation for the family of one of the most powerful people in an repressive regime that controls the country where this company makes money”.

Burgis, in his new book, also talks about another investigation – connected with another company mining metals in Kazakhstan (ERG), which has also been the subject of an anti-corruption investigation in Britain for several years. Burgis writes about the mysterious one-night death in the United States of two former managers of the Eurasian Resources Group. The FBI handles the case.