Aliya Nazarbayeva bought a private jet worth $25 million and a house in Highgate for £8.75 million.
The daughter of the former president of strife-torn Kazakhstan has traveled to London to spend $300 million of her personal fortune taken out of the country.
Aliya Nazarbayeva appointed two professional financial advisers to buy luxury homes, a private bank and a luxury jet, then transferred the money to a complex network of offshore trusts and companies stretching from Liechtenstein to the British Virgin Islands.
Her purchases include a $25 million Challenger Bombardier private jet, an £8.75 million house in Highgate, north London, which was intended to help her gain British citizenship, and commissioning her team to purchase a $14 million property in Dubai , including a villa on the artificial island of Palm Jumeirah.
Details of the 2006 spending, revealed for the first time on Saturday, are likely to raise eyebrows in Kazakhstan, which has been gripped by violent protests targeting the country's increasingly vilified elite.
Aliya is the youngest daughter of Nursultan Nazarbayev, who was Kazakhstan's president for 28 years until 2019, when he faded into the background but retained much of his power.
While he led the country through the Soviet years and beyond, a small minority of people amassed enormous wealth while many ordinary Kazakhs struggled to make ends meet.
On January 5, he abruptly resigned as head of Kazakhstan's Security Council and was reportedly preparing to leave the country. Authorities insisted on Saturday that Mr Nazarbayev was in the capital, named Nur-Sultan in his honour.
There had previously been speculation that Ms Nazarbayeva was keen to move to Dubai with her father as he tries to escape the turmoil, and that she might hope to use London as a secure base.
Her spending in London, which one expert described as “staggering”, only came to light after she fell out with two financial advisers, accusing them of dishonesty, misappropriation of funds, conspiracy to defraud, breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment.
Ms Nazarbayeva, 41, sued them in London's High Court for £165 million before settling the case in a confidential agreement. Her advisers, described as reputable and respected financial experts, deny the claims. Details of the 2016 case have only now become known.
Until now, Ms Nazarbayeva, whose older sister Dariga owns £80m of London property, was best known as a model for Damiani designer jewellery, promoted her own couture brand and owned a luxury spa in Almaty, the world's largest city of Kazakhstan, and also headed a construction company.
On her Instagram account, she often publishes photographs of herself with her father, who, before his fall from power, cultivated the image of the “father of the nation.”
The Nazarbayev family has long established financial ties with the UK. In 2007, a Kazakh oligarch paid Prince Andrew £3 million more than asking for his marital home in Sunninghill Park.
Ms Nazarbayeva claims she transferred $312 million of her personal fortune outside the country after advisers told her it was “dangerous” to keep her fortune in the country and that she should “hide” and “disguise” it in a network of offshore funds and trusts, according to court documents seen by The Telegraph.
Documents filed in the High Court allege that Malik Ishmuratov, a Kazakh wealth manager, “repeatedly told her that Ms Nazarbayeva was a politically exposed person (PEP)” and that it was “dangerous for her to keep her assets in Kazakhstan.” "
In 2006, Ms. Nazarbayeva “admitted” to Mr. Ishmuratov that she “sold some stakes in Kazakh companies, receiving approximately $325,000,000.”
Mr Ishmuratov then introduced Ms Nazarbayeva to Denis Korotkov-Koganovich, a Kazakh wealth manager living in London.
In 2008, according to court documents, Mr. Ishmuratov advised Ms. Nazarbayeva to establish the Alsarah fund in Liechtenstein “through which her funds were held and which protected and disguised her interests.”
By June 2008, Ms. Nazarbayeva “verbally agreed” with Mr. Ishmuratov to entrust him and Mr. Korotkov-Koganovich with the initial capital of $150,000,000, transferring the money to Marstock Ltd, a company that the wealth managers registered in the British Virgin Islands islands.
It was the first of several large transfers from Ms Nazarbayev to the couple, which ultimately totaled $312 million.
Ms Nazarbayeva claims that Mr Ishmuratov advised her that, as a politically exposed person, she would not be able to open a bank account and, to get around this problem, should simply buy the bank.
Allegedly on his recommendation, Ms. Nazarbayeva instructed Mr. Ishmuratov to invest $108 million in CBH Bank, an exclusive Swiss private bank, in exchange for a 51 percent stake.
Her money was also invested in bonds, investment funds, including a London wine fund that held valuable cognacs from the 18th and 19th centuries, and an Essex-based lending company aimed at borrowers with bad credit.
But when Ms Nazarbayeva's relationship with Mr Ishmuratov and Mr Korotkov-Koganovich soured, apparently under pressure from her father, she sued them in the High Court in London in March 2016 for £165 million [233 million dollars].
She claimed both advisers did not follow her wishes and allegedly took profits beyond the agreed 25 per cent profit margin and invested her money in deals she rejected, including building a luxury complex in “billionaires' row” on Bishop's Avenue in Hampstead.
She also accused them of embezzling 75 million Swiss francs - more than half the amount earmarked for the purchase of the Swiss bank.
The couple deny the allegations and claim they always acted in her financial best interests.
Ms Nazarbayeva sought an injunction to prevent any further transactions with her assets, as well as damages and compensation with interest. The suit was subsequently settled by a confidential settlement.
While there is no suggestion that Ms Nazarbayeva's money was acquired illegally, Kazakh commentators say the revelations raise questions about how her wealth was taken out of the country.
Tom Main, a visiting fellow at Chatham House and a research fellow at the University of Exeter with extensive knowledge of Kazakhstan, said: “This raises many questions about Aliya Nazarbayeva's business dealings in Kazakhstan. The amount of money is simply staggering.
“This case shows how the UK is often used as a safe haven for this kind of money. People taking to the streets in Kazakhstan look around and see that the Nazarbayev family has houses worth millions of pounds and millions to invest in whatever they want.”
