Kazakhstan reclaims assets worth $1.7 billion

Kazakhstan has reclaimed assets valued at $1.7 billion, according to Prosecutor General Berik Asylov. He made this statement at a meeting of the Interagency Commission Against Illegal Concentration of Economic Resources.

«Thanks to consolidated efforts, we have managed to recover Kazakhstan assets worth $1.7 billion. We’ve done this even without a specially designed law. All members of the commission and authorized state agencies have contributed to this achievement,» Asylov said.

As a spokesperson from the Office of the Prosecutor General highlighted, $575 million worth of assets was reclaimed from foreign jurisdictions. According to Asylov, Kazakhstan requested legal assistance from 100 countries and managed to claim property valued at more than $100 million.

«For example, under the case of Kairat Satybaldy, we recovered jewelry worth tens of millions of dollars from countries such as Liechtenstein, Austria, Hong Kong and the UAE,» said Alipbek Zein, official spokesperson of the interagency commission on asset recovery.

The Supreme Court of Kazakhstan has also contributed to the process as it supported 24 protests of the Prosecutor General against unjustified rulings made in favor of oligarchs.

The court has deemed illegal the privatization of 31% shares of the Almaty Heavy Machine Building Plant. In a separate case, the Supreme Court’s support helped recover $2.9 million from the owners of the Duman Hotel in Astana.

Moreover, Kazakhstani courts sustained plaintiff claims related to the process of recovering assets such as industrial sites, marketplaces, commercial property and land parcels, all of which were illegally taken from the state. For example, the Atyrau Refinery has recovered a 50% share in a company managing a warehouse for liquified petroleum gas.

The commission against the illegal concentration of economic resources has been established by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s decision. The main task of the agency is the recovery of assets illegally taken from the country.

In September 2022, Kazakhstan’s authorities said that they had recovered the country’s assets worth $1.1 billion. In December 2022, they raised that figure to about $1.4 billion.