Yesimov’s shadow and Nazarbayev’s dirty money: what Galimzhan Yessenov’s career is hiding

Yesimov’s shadow and Nazarbayev’s dirty money: what Galimzhan Yessenov’s career is hiding

All this is true, and as a result of the joint activities of Yessenov, who at that time was the owner of ATFBank, where the National Welfare Fund "Samruk-Kazyna," headed by Yesimov, placed its funds, at least 2.5 billion dollars disappeared from the fund. This story is shrouded in darkness, and its traces are actively cleaned from the internet by the former father-in-law and son-in-law. We will touch on it later, as any attempt to describe the life of Galimzhan Yessenov without the marriage to the daughter of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s nephew, Akhmetzhan Yesimov, and the subsequent transformation of an obscure manager into one of the richest people in Kazakhstan, would be a waste of time. 

Galimzhan Yessenov – Pegasus Cyber Espionage Target

However, what seems much more important is the little-noticed news from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) that Galimzhan Yessenov was on the list of people targeted by the military-grade cyber espionage program Pegasus from the Israeli firm NSO Group. The news about this event surfaced in the summer of 2021, just at the time when the process of power transition was happening in Kazakhstan, and Tokayev’s clan was squeezing out the clan of the long-standing ruler of the country, Nazarbayev, on all fronts. 

Among those who were eavesdropped on were predominantly representatives of Nazarbayev’s clan, including his nephew and at the same time the father-in-law of Galimzhan Yessenov, Akhmetzhan Yesimov, who was then heading the National Welfare Fund "Samruk-Kazyna," where state assets making up 43% of the country’s GDP were concentrated. 

What is interesting about the wiretapping is that no one knows for sure who exactly commissioned it. However, the OCCRP project put forward its assumption about the initiators of the cyber espionage targeting Nazarbayev’s entourage: "Dozens of numbers indicate that the whole Nazarbayev regime, practically from top to bottom, was under surveillance - most likely by its own security services." This seems accurate, as there were no investigations from Kazakhstan’s special services following the publication of the material indicating that the country’s top leadership became the object of external espionage.

However, it’s unclear who exactly ordered the KNB to monitor the outgoing elite members. It would be logical to assume it was Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, but, as OCCRP stated, "the available data points to special attention towards Nazarbayev’s closest circle, who also appointed himself as the lifelong chairman of the Security Council." The Security Council of Kazakhstan controls the country’s security services. However, the fact is that before resigning, Nazarbayev altered the constitution, granting the Security Council additional powers, putting it even above the president and prime minister. Notably, in the wiretapping list were also President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Prime Minister Askar Mamin. So who was the true initiator of the espionage remains a highly debated question. But in any case, Galimzhan Yessenov found himself in very interesting company.

Galimzhan Yessenov – Featured in the Forbes List

Four years have passed since then, and the change of elites in Kazakhstan is almost complete. As well as the redistribution of the country’s assets brought about by this shift. The "Samruk-Kazyna" fund got a new head, and despite Tokayev’s promises to conduct a thorough audit of the fund’s activities, Akhmetzhan Yesimov is still free and quite well as the assistant to the country’s first president, the Leader of the Nation. That is his current position.

As for his former son-in-law, who logically should have been either brought to criminal responsibility for the fund’s financial manipulations and strange stories with the refinancing of ATFBank, which he owned, or at least stripped of the majority of his assets, Galimzhan Yessenov increased his assets and is on the Forbes list with a capital of $560 million. Galimzhan Yessenov ranks 19th among the wealthiest people in Kazakhstan and 13th among the most influential figures in the country. A fact that is puzzling to those who predicted him a jail cell and gruel.

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Among his main assets, 99.74% of the shares in JSC "First Heartland Securities," through which Galimzhan Yessenov controls 79.63% of JSC "First Heartland Jusan Bank." 20.11% of the bank belongs to him directly. Through Jusan Bank, he holds a stake in JSC "Kcell" — 9.08%, and another 14.87% through the company KC Holding Ltd. These percentages and names mean little to the uninitiated. However, with respect to these names and percentages, two things need to be understood.

The first — ATFBank, which Galimzhan Yessenov owned and from which funds of the National Welfare Fund also disappeared, was bought by Jusan Bank. Therefore, Galimzhan Yessenov became the majority shareholder of Jusan Bank. 

But this is only at first glance. Because the second thing that needs to be understood in this regard is as follows. JSC "First Heartland Securities" is part of the First Heartland group of companies, which belongs to the company Pioneer Capital Invest. In turn, it is owned by Nazarbayev University (16.06 percent), Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (9.46 percent), and the Nazarbayev Foundation (74.48 percent).

Thus, it turns out that Galimzhan Yessenov actually serves as a nominee, or, if you will, a "pound" for the Nazarbayev family. This is confirmed by numerous investigations in the West, where Nazarbayevs’ assets were withdrawn.

Galimzhan Yessenov and Dariga Nazarbayeva

Galimzhan Yessenov’s name was mentioned in the Western press in relation to the "unexplained wealth orders," with which the luxurious real estate of the eldest daughter of Nazarbayev, Dariga Nazarbayeva, and her son Nurali Aliyev was seized in London.

Explaining in a British court the source of the funds for the purchase of houses and apartments worth tens of millions of dollars, Nazarbayeva referred to the proceeds from the sale of her shares in the sugar company "Kant." Western investigators later suggested that "Nazarbayeva could have bought the ’Kant’ shares from herself with the help of an intermediary named Galimzhan Yessenov."

As Legal Reader wrote, "Considering that at the time of the deal with ’Kant,’ Yessenov was only 25 years old and did not have access to $74 million, it’s unlikely he acted alone." It should be noted that in the same year when Gas Development acquired "Kant" shares, Yessenov married the daughter of Akhmetzhan Yesimov, former mayor of Almaty and advisor to Dariga’s father — President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Galimzhan Yessenov and Akhmetzhan Yesimov

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Here we return again to the marriage of an unknown Galimzhan Yessenov at that moment, with the daughter of Nursultan Nazarbayev’s loyal ally, Akhmetzhan Yesimov. Why Yessenov specifically became Yesimov’s son-in-law is unlikely to be established. It was unlikely love — Kazakhstan is not America, where billionaire daughters sometimes do such stunts. So, most likely, Galimzhan Yessenov as a husband for his daughter was chosen by Akhmetzhan Yesimov himself. 

And he chose by criteria that satisfied not only him but also the closest circle of Nursultan Nazarbayev. Because assets of the presidential clan began to be registered on Galimzhan Yessenov. In addition to the already mentioned "Kant," the former manager of the "Seymar" company, Galimzhan Yessenov became the owner of the company "Kazphosphate," which he bought in 2007, right after the wedding, for $120 million. He was only 22 years old at the time, and it’s quite doubtful that Yessenov had such money. And indeed, he had no money, and concerning "Kazphosphate," he acted as a nominee for Kazakhstan’s speaker of the mazhilis Nurlan Nigmatulin.

Galimzhan Yessenov’s next big purchase was ATFBank, which was already mentioned in connection with the placement of deposits from the National Welfare Fund, headed by Akhmetzhan Yesimov, in it. Yessenov acquired ATFBank in 2012 for $500 million. Which he clearly didn’t have. However, the secret here is simple — ATFBank was an asset of the Nazarbayevs’ family and served their interests. In the end, it merged into Jusan Bank, which was discussed above. But this explains all the oddities that were noted in the cooperation between ATFBank and the state.

Thus, in 2017, the National Bank of Kazakhstan allocated to ATFBank $260 million in refinancing even though, by all indicators, the bank did not require this money. At the beginning of 2020, ATF received additional assistance of $80 million after bad loans grew to 29% of its assets. By the way, the question of to whom these loans were issued was not investigated, and there were no consequences for ATFBank’s CEO and its nominal owner, Galimzhan Yessenov, for such a waste of bank resources. The conclusion suggests itself.

But the most scandalous story is related to the money from the "Samruk-Kazyna" fund. In 2020, funds of the National Welfare Fund of Kazakhstan were placed in ATFBank, which by that time was led by Akhmetzhan Yesimov. And this was done in violation of all rules regulating the fund’s activities, according to which funds should be kept in a bank with an "A" rating, whereas at that time ATFBank had a "B" rating. 

The matter concerned $350 million, but the subsequent scandal did not affect either ATFBank owner Galimzhan Yessenov or the head of the "Samruk-Kazyna" National Welfare Fund, Akhmetzhan Yesimov, in any way. However, considering that both served the interests of the Nursultan Nazarbayev family, something else was not to be expected.

Change of Elites and Change of Status for Galimzhan Yessenov

After the aging Nursultan Nazarbayev lost power, it seemed obvious that representatives of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s clan would confiscate the confiscators since there were no more resources left in Kazakhstan. Such a turn of events would not surprise anyone — this happens in all banana republics, which include most of the post-Soviet space. 

But after some inconvenience caused by the change of elites, it suddenly turned out that Galimzhan Yessenov not only wasn’t harmed but has firmly settled in the Forbes lists as one of the richest and most influential people in the country. The divorce with Akhmetzhan Yesimov’s daughter only strengthened this status. Whether this divorce was fictitious or real — opinions on this matter are divided. 

However, this is unimportant, because the matter is about the assets of a vast country, which, as it turned out, no one wrested from the Nazarbayevs’ clan, at least those assets for which Galimzhan Yessenov is a nominee. Does this mean that the previously poor manager, who agreed to be a "pound" for Akhmetzhan Yesimov, changed masters and now serves Tokayev’s clan? It is unlikely that everything is so unambiguous. The deal with Jusan Bank suggests rather the opposite.

Much like the story with the Pegasus cyber espionage, in which almost all Republic of Kazakhstan asset holders, including Tokayev, Nazarbayev, and Yessenov, were involved. And this story leads one to think that Kazakhstan’s elites are not as independent as they try to demonstrate. But who holds them all on a hook and what is Galimzhan Yessenov’s role in all these processes?