Aliya Nazarbayeva Eastern Princess 2.0

Despite loud statements from the authorities about the construction of “New Kazakhstan,” “Old Kazakhstan,” after the January coup attempt, not only does not give up, but also strengthens its position. The immediate family of the first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, remains largely untouched and amassing wealth. In recent months, quite serious accusations have been made against his youngest daughter Aliya, which, however, do not develop into criminal cases. Details are in the Fergana article.

Charge of raiding

Recently, the Almaty police refused to initiate a criminal case of business seizure against Aliya Nazarbayeva, the daughter of the first president Nursultan Nazarbayev. The accusations were made by the co-founders of the TPK Asia company, Nurlan Bimurzin and Medgat Kaliev. In the early 2000s, they owned seven oil depots and 96 gas stations, which, according to businessmen, they had to transfer to Nazarbayev for almost nothing due to threats.

“You all know very well what position the Nazarbayev family enjoyed in Kazakhstan, especially Aliya Nazarbayeva, so today we believe that justice must prevail... I worry very much, but how much can one be afraid, everything must be made public, the truth must be told - the people of Kazakhstan must know the truth,” Bimurzin said at a press conference.

He clarified to the Kursiv publication that the company’s assets subsequently became part of the Sinoil gas station network. Realizing that Sinoil were considered bona fide buyers and the assets could not be returned, the businessmen wanted to seek compensation for damages - lost profits for 20 years.

They sent their application to the Prosecutor General’s Office, from where it went to the Financial Monitoring Agency. As a result, the complaint was sent to the Almaty police, where the entrepreneurs were advised to go to civil court.

In recent months, the name of Aliya Nazarbayeva has surfaced more than once in connection with similar proceedings. Before the accusations of raiding, its “shadow” was observed in the high-profile case of the ROP Operator, a private company that the government in 2015, without competition, authorized to collect recycling payments, coordinate waste collection, transportation and processing. The Russian publication RBC , citing sources, called Nazarbayev’s youngest daughter the first founder of this company.

The work of the ROP Operator caused many complaints from Kazakhstanis. After “Bloody January” of 2022, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev ordered the removal of this company from collecting recycling fees. Later, its assets were transferred to the ownership of the state, and criminal cases were brought against its management.

The litigation related to the ROP Operator ended on July 3, 2023. As part of this case, former Deputy Minister of Ecology, Geology and Natural Resources of Kazakhstan Akhmetzhan Primkulov, as well as ex-heads of the LLP Svetlana Korotenko and Medet Kumargaliev received seven years in prison with deprivation of the right to hold positions in the civil service and in commercial organizations. The company’s former financial director, Rustam Temirbek, was sentenced to two years in prison, but due to the amnesty, his sentence was halved to one year. The court found the defendants in the case guilty of embezzling someone else’s property and abuse of power.

Another defendant, the former founder of the ROP Operator Shnar Muktarova, was extradited to Kazakhstan from the United Arab Emirates. She was charged with complicity in the theft of 920 million tenge (about $2 million). As a result, she received a seven-year suspended sentence.

The publication ulysmedia.kz , which covered the trial, wrote that Muktarova is the formal founder of the company. The rest of the defendants in the case called her the housekeeper of the youngest daughter of the first president, stating that the company was actually managed personally by Aliya Nazarbayeva. The publication was unable to confirm or refute this statement.

Last fall, a member of the Mazhilis (the lower house of the parliament of Kazakhstan) from the ruling party Amanat, Erlan Sairov, drew the attention of the Prosecutor General’s Office to the fact that the name of Aliya Nazarbayeva was repeatedly mentioned in the case of the ROP Operator, but her role in it remained unclear.

“If we want to build a fair society in Kazakhstan, then in such situations every citizen must go to court and prove his innocence,” he said .

The Prosecutor General’s Office responded rather dryly to the deputy’s statement, noting that Aliya Nazarbayeva was not involved or interrogated in this criminal case as a participant in the process.

Youngest daughter

Aliya is the youngest of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s three daughters. She was born on February 3, 1980 in Almaty. At various times she worked as assistant director of Europe Plus radio, consultant to the general department of the presidential administration of Kazakhstan, president of the Almatyfarm corporation, general director of Caspian Industries Ltd LLP, chairman of the board of directors of Elitstroy LLP.

She was also the head of the presidium of the Association of Environmental Organizations (until 2022) and  the chairman of the council of youth labor groups “Zhasyl El”.

In 2018, Aliya Nazarbayeva received from her father the State Prize of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the field of literature and art for her participation in the creation of the full-length film “Anaga Aparar Zhol” (“The Road to Mother”). She acted as the producer of this film.

Aliya Nazarbayeva at the presentation of the international center for green technologies and investment projects. Photo from the site aeok.kz

Also, the youngest daughter of the first president wrote the book “Place of Power”, the presentation of which took place on September 16, 2021 in Almaty. According to the author, Forbes.kz wrote about this , people came into this life to be happy.

“The only question is: what is happiness? — the publication quoted Nazarbayev. - This is knowledge. If you receive knowledge, you receive a methodology, everything is already written out there. You just need to follow these principles, these rules. The laws of nature have not been canceled. Even if you don’t know them, they still work. Living in harmony with nature, with God in your heart - I believe that this is the most important foundation of happiness,” she reasoned.

Aliya Nazarbayeva, like many children of wealthy parents, sought her calling in different areas. In 2011, she launched the jewelry line Alsara (after the first letters of Alia’s name and her mother Sara). The collection was created in collaboration with the Italian brand Damiani. At the same time, Aliya began to be compared with another eastern princess - the daughter of the first president of Uzbekistan, Gulnara Karimova, who was promoting her jewelry brand Guli at that time.

After 2013 and the start of criminal prosecution, Gulnara Karimova actually lost her business and fortune. She is currently serving time in a colony near Tashkent on charges of organizing a criminal community, extortion and other crimes.

Aliya Nazarbayeva, on the contrary, until recently, practically did not find herself at the center of major scandals, and Western investigative journalists, who revealed the shadow income of members of powerful families and pretty much frayed the nerves of her sister Dariga with  the house of Sherlock Holmes , did not notice her at all. But after the bloody events of January 2022, something changed.

Mansion and message from the UAE

On January 8, 2022, when mass unrest was being suppressed in Kazakhstan, the British The Telegraph published an article about how Aliya Nazarbayeva withdrew more than $300 million from Kazakhstan.

The publication, available by paid subscription, was retold by the tabloid The Daily Mail . Details of Aliya Nazarbayeva’s financial transactions became known due to her proceedings with two former financial managers. The daughter of the ex-president of Kazakhstan filed a lawsuit against them in a British court, accusing them of fraud and misappropriation of funds. She demanded £165 million from them, but the claim was eventually settled by agreement between the parties.

According to court documents, Aliya Nazarbayeva told one of the financial managers that in 2006 she received about $325 million by selling her shares in a certain business. Of this, $312 million was withdrawn from Kazakhstan because Nazarbayeva considered it unsafe for her to keep funds in her homeland.

Later, the daughter of the first president purchased a house in the London suburb of Highgate for £8.75 million, intending to obtain a residence permit in the UK. She also bought property in Dubai for $14 million and a Bombardier Challenger jet for £18 million.

The article did not provide details of when exactly the purchases were made and the shares in which business Aliya Nazarbayeva sold. But, of course, this publication added fuel to the fire of the already violent discontent with the family of the former president, which gripped Kazakhstan in the first days of 2022.

Meanwhile, it was Aliya Nazarbayeva who became the first member of the ex-president’s family to make herself known in the public space after the start of the unrest. The rest of Elbasy’s relatives ( Leader of the Nation, title of Nursultan Nazarbayev - Fergana’s note ), like himself, did not make statements or appear in public for more than two weeks.

On January 13, in her Facebook and Instagram accounts ( banned in the Russian Federation, owned by the Meta corporation, recognized as extremist in the Russian Federation ), Aliya Nazarbayeva expressed condolences to the families of those killed in the January events and thanked her father, Nursultan Nazarbayev, for their support. However, a few hours after the publication, she closed all her accounts. This happened after social network users geolocated her location - the United Arab Emirates.

It is unknown where Aliya Nazarbayeva is now. Last fall, Deputy Prosecutor General Aset Chindaliev was asked this question, but he  admitted that he did not know the answer to it.

"Victims of Old Kazakhstan"

Meanwhile, the story of accusing the ex-president’s youngest daughter of raiding is not yet over. On April 4, entrepreneurs, lawyers and social activists announced in Almaty the creation of a public association tentatively called “Victims of Old Kazakhstan,” ORDA.kz reports .

At the press conference, in addition to the above-mentioned Nurlan Bimurzin (co-founder of TPK Asia, who accused Aliya Nazarbayeva of taking over the business), representatives of Abli Kurylys LLP, which owned the Hilton Hotel in Almaty, spoke. According to them, the hotel was illegally appropriated by the nephew of the first president, Kairat Satybaldy. Subsequently, he donated this asset to the state, although at that time he was already in prison.

Participants in the press conference stated that “Old Kazakhstan,” despite the departure of Nursultan Nazarbayev from the presidential post, had firmly taken root. In this regard, they intend to prepare an appeal to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and collectively make an appointment with him to personally ask the head of state for help.

Despite the course proclaimed by the authorities, members of the Nazarbayev family, as the most prominent representatives of “Old Kazakhstan,” indeed feel more than confident. The nephew of the first president, Samat Abish, who was accused of abuse of power during the January events, received an eight-year suspended sentence. Kairat Satybaldy, who is in prison, is now trying to conclude a deal with the court on a new episode of money laundering.

Law enforcement agencies have no questions about Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter Dariga and her husband Kairat Sharipbaev .

Finally, Nazarbayev’s middle daughter Dinara and her husband Timur Kulibayev are storming to new heights in the international Forbes World’s Billionaires ranking. In the list published last week, they were ranked 612th (versus 636th place last year). The Kulibayevs’ fortune is now estimated at $5 billion each - this is $1.4 billion more than a year earlier for two.