Kazakh power couple win ‘Mcmafia’ case
THE daughter and grandson of Kazakhstan’s former president have won a High Court battle to stop “Mcmafia” laws being used to seize an £80 million property portfolio in London.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) last year targeted three addresses it suspected were bought with the proceeds of the crimes of Rakhat Aliyev, a late Kazakh politician once married to the oldest daughter of Nursultan Nazarbayev, the man who ruled Kazakhstan with an iron grip for decades before his resignation last year.
They included a 10-bedroom mansion in an area of Hampstead, north London, known as Billionaires’ Row, of which Mr Aliyev’s son, Nurali Aliyev, is the “ultimate beneficial owner”.
The other two properties – a mansion near Highgate Golf Club and a Chelsea apartment believed to be worth £31 million – are ultimately owned by Dariga Nazarbayeva, Mr Nazarbayev’s oldest daughter, who is the chairman of the Kazakh senate.
Investigators claimed they had grounds to suspect that Rakhat Aliyev, described as “part of a corrupt inner circle in the Kazakh regime who enriched himself at public expense”, funded the purchases. He died in an Austrian prison in 2015 while awaiting trial on two charges of murder.
However, the High Court yesterday overturned three Unexplained Wealth Orders (UWOS) used against the properties by the NCA, saying the alleged link to Rakhat Aliyev was “unreliable”.
In a damning judgment, Mrs Justice Lang said the NCA conducted an “inadequate investigation into some obvious lines of inquiry”, such as Ms Nazarbayeva’s independent wealth and Nurali Aliyev’s estrangement from his father.
There was said to be “cogent evidence” that Ms Nazarbayeva and Nurali Aliyev had founded the companies that owned the properties and provided the funds to purchase them.
The judgment is a damaging blow to the NCA in its fight against illicit money as the case against the Kazakh family was only the second use of UWOS, which were brought into force in 2018 under “Mcmafia” legislation, named after a book and BBC crime drama.
The NCA yesterday vowed to appeal.