Alleged Kazakhstan Bayrock Money Laundering Scheme
3 min readMar 26, 2019
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Mukhtar Ablyazov the former Chairman of BTA Bank allegedly stole between $6–10 billion
- BTA Bank made intracompany loans with Netherlands subsidiary TuranAlem Finance B.V. as part of the scheme.
- In 2007 Bracewell & Giuliani advised BTA and TuranAlem Finance B.V. on $1 billion debt deal that may have been part of the scheme.
- The revelation that funds were stolen occurred in 2009.
Viktor Khrapunov the former mayor of Almaty Kazakhstan allegedly stole $350 million
The entire Khrapunov family was involved:
- Leila Khrapunov — Viktor’s wife
- Ilyas Khrapunov — married to Mukhtar Ablyazov’s daughter Madina
- Elvira Kudryashova — Leila’s daughter and Viktor’s stepdaughter
Leila Khrapunov and Tevfik Arif set up Kazbay B.V. in the Netherlands with funding of $1.48 million
- Kazbay B.V. was set up in 2007 as a joint venture of Leila Khrapunov’s Helvetic Capital S.A. and Tevfik Arif’s Bayrock B.V.
- Kazbay B.V. was set-up by Rudy Giuliani’s firm Bracewell & Giuliani
Elvira Kudryashova allegedly used laundered funds to purchase three condos in Trump Soho for $3.2 million in 2014
Ilyas Khrapunov allegedly laundered stolen Ablyazov and Khrapunov funds with Tevfik Arif, Felix Sater, Daniel Ridloff
- Ilyas Khrapunov’s Swiss Development Group (SDG) allegedly worked with Felix Sater and Daniel Ridloff and laundered up to $40 million
- Swiss Development Group (SDG) partnered with Tevfik Arif’s Bayrock on Hotel du Parc in Geneva
The following complaint was filed by human rights organization AVAAZ related to the Khrapunov fraud and includes source notes and links.
(Note: the author was a consultant to AVAAZ on this complaint)
The story on Kazbay which was set-up by Bracewell & Giuliani was originally reported by McClatchy, Dutch broadcaster Zembla and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project:
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