Uncovering Timur Kulibayev’sEuropean property empire

As the wealth of Kazakhstan’s “oil prince” expand­ed so did his real estate port­fo­lio, which now includes a U.K. man­sion once owned by Prince Andrew.

About Kulibayev and his assets

Timur Kulibayev was born into pow­er in 1966, the son of a Communist Party boss in the for­mer Soviet Union. Raised in a west­ern Kazakh oil city, he stud­ied eco­nom­ics at one of Russia’s most pres­ti­gious uni­ver­si­ties. In Moscow, Kulibayev moved in the same social cir­cles as the mid­dle daugh­ter of Kazakhstan’s future pres­i­dent. She would become his wife. Kulibayev’s con­nec­tions to Kazakh elites fueled his rise in a series of pow­er­ful state-owned ener­gy com­pa­nies and trade asso­ci­a­tions as the Central Asian coun­try was open­ing its econ­o­my to Western investment.

Known as the “oil prince,” Kulibayev, togeth­er with his wife, Dinara Kulibayeva, land­ed on Forbes’ bil­lion­aires list in 2007, thanks in part to invest­ments in the oil and gas indus­try, as well as in bank­ing, gold and telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions. As the couple’s wealth bal­looned, so did their European prop­er­ty port­fo­lio, which includes a U.K. man­sion once owned by a mem­ber of the British roy­al fam­i­ly, cas­tles in Germany and Switzerland, and a cov­et­ed Spanish estate over­look­ing the Mediterranean.

About the data

This is a selec­tion of res­i­den­tial prop­er­ties that ICIJ iden­ti­fied as belong­ing to Timur Kulibayev and mem­bers of his fam­i­ly. Between June and October 2024, ICIJ and its media part­ners reviewed land and prop­er­ty records, checked com­pa­ny reg­istries, and report­ed on the ground to inves­ti­gate the sprawl­ing real estate empire in five European countries.

ICIJ’s research uncov­ered prop­er­ties owned by Kulibayev and his wife, Dinara Kulibayeva, that were pre­vi­ous­ly unknown, includ­ing in the United Kingdom and Spain. ICIJ also reviewed whether real estate pre­vi­ous­ly report­ed on in the media was still linked to the bil­lion­aire Kazakh couple.

In some cas­es, the infor­ma­tion was incom­plete or dif­fi­cult to obtain. These report­ing road­blocks included:

• The major­i­ty of prop­er­ties were ulti­mate­ly acquired through com­pa­nies incor­po­rat­ed in secre­cy juris­dic­tions, such as the British Virgin Islands, Luxembourg and Singapore. The lack of trans­paren­cy and tan­gled busi­ness arrange­ments helped to obscure the ulti­mate ben­e­fi­cial own­ers’ identities.
• Not all records from nation­al land reg­istries show the price paid for prop­er­ties, includ­ing in Spain.
• Land reg­istries and reg­istries that col­lect ben­e­fi­cial own­er­ship infor­ma­tion are often not con­nect­ed. The reg­is­trars of each may issue sep­a­rate prop­er­ty iden­ti­fi­ca­tion num­bers in offi­cial doc­u­ments, as is the case in Spain. Reporters used satel­lite imagery to over­come this prob­lem to iden­ti­fy the prop­er­ties. This also helped reporters to describe prop­er­ties’ size and facilities.

To read the full sto­ry and see the full map vis­it source: ICIJ