The call for military service in Russia has led not only regular citizens who are liable for conscription to leave the country, but has also sped up the movement of business entities.
As a result, all of the staff of billionaire Timur Turlov, who is the creator and main shareholder of the investment group LLC IC Freedom Finance with the parent company Freedom Holding Corp., have already been relocated from Russia to Kazakhstan. Some media organizations previously labeled Timur Turlov as a simple con artist with a Ponzi scheme, but now he deserves much more serious attention.
Currently, despite Turlov's repeated public promises to create jobs for Kazakhstan citizens, he is actually reducing the number of local employees in favor of immigrants from Russia. Many observers of the job market note that Russians are now occupying more than half of the positions previously held by Kazakh workers in Turlov's companies. This is happening in firms directly owned by Turlov: LLC IC Freedom Finance, Bank Freedom Finance Kazakhstan JSC (formerly Bank Kassa Nova JSC), Freedom Finance Insurance, and Freedom Finance Life. It is also occurring in companies controlled through proxies Vitaly Dyadchev and Viktor Shadrin: the Kursiv publication, Freedom Finance Credit microlending organization, Finpari brokerage, and Freedom24 online securities store. Furthermore, following Turlov's announcement of the complete closure of his company's Moscow office, the jobs of Kazakhstan citizens in companies partially controlled by him were also at risk: BAST JSC, Chocofamily Holding, Arbuz Group, Naimi kz, Relog, and Cerebra. Additionally, Russian nationals are occupying top positions in Turlov's companies, even though this is explicitly prohibited by national law.
How do Timur Turlov and Bulat Utemuratov operate?
It is believed that such activities, as well as the billionaire's overall business, which involves unlawful financial dealings and resembles a financial pyramid, are only possible thanks to Turlov's connections with influential figures close to Kazakhstan's first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, and the former head of the KNB, Karim Massimov. Without such connections, the business of a young Russian – and Turlov is just 34 years old – could not have achieved a billion-dollar capitalization, or even survived in Kazakhstan.
One of billionaire Timur Turlov's supporters is oligarch Bulat Utemuratov, known as Nursultan Nazarbayev's financial backer. This is evident from the acquisition of Bank Kassa Nova JSC for $52 million, which is considered questionable since the bank's market valuation, ranking fifteenth among all second-tier banks in Kazakhstan, was significantly higher. Through this deal, Utemuratov effectively entrusted part of the assets to Turlov, with the ultimate beneficiary potentially being the first president of Kazakhstan himself. It is no coincidence that Turlov subsequently became involved in a number of socially significant projects linked to the ex-president's family and the national leader. For example, Turlov started financing the Almaty football club Kairat after the arrest of Kairat Boranbaev. Turlov publicly denied purchasing the football club, but during the club's matches, he was seen in the VIP area where Boranbaev used to sit, and he was appointed as a member of the executive committee of the Kazakhstan Football Federation in place of Boranbaev.
In addition, the same Turlov financed a commemorative football tournament in honor of Nazarbayev’s nephew, Aisultan Nazarbayev, at which Dariga Nazarbayeva personally presented the prizes, and also financed a football media project and the creation of a youth football league. It must be assumed that all these actions of Turlov are not connected with his personal love for Kazakhstani football, but are dictated by the interests of the Nazarbayev family, which, dreaming of political revenge, wants to maintain control over the large army of Kazakhstani football fans. Also, one of the media assets of the family of the former father and leader of the nation, Channel 7, was transferred under Turlov’s control, which was previously financed and controlled by Alexander Klebanov, a confidant of Dariga Nazarbayeva.
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All this indicates that Turlov, through the investment group LLC IC Freedom Finance and the “parent company” Freedom Holding Corp, launders the corruption funds of the family of the first president of Kazakhstan. This happens through a network of offshore companies in Belize, Cyprus and the United States, since initially Turlov’s brokerage business was built on strange transactions of clients’ money through offshore jurisdictions with subsequent legalization on accounts in brokerage companies in the United States. In the United States, Turlov’s goal is to acquire shares in various companies, while the shares are acquired not in the name of clients, but in the name of these very companies – “gaskets” from offshore jurisdictions. The complicated scheme of acquiring shares of various companies and the fact that ordinary clients who trusted Turlov’s business schemes, after depositing cash, are forced to comply with a 93-day ban on the sale of securities on the exchange and over-the-counter market, have already attracted the attention of the Securities Commission to the activities of the billionaire and US exchanges (SEC). In the event that the United States closes Turlov’s access to buying and selling securities, all his clients will remain deprived of access to funds, which will instantly lead to the collapse of the financial pyramid.
It is believed that before the tragic “January events” Timur Turlov felt quite secure at the expense of clients from Nazarbayev’s inner circle, who were interested in anonymously buying up securities in the United States. However, now, although he continues to rely entirely on the representatives of the “old Kazakhstan”, he, nevertheless, cannot be called an untouchable person.
