Aigul Nuriyeva is first on Margaret Hodge’s list; will she finally be sanctioned?

Not only cit­i­zens of Russia and Ukraine have cho­sen the United Kingdom as a safe haven for them­selves and their often illic­it wealth. A sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of assets with no legal ori­gin has been brought in from Kazakhstan by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of its cor­rupt gov­ern­ment and busi­ness elites. The long rule of Nursultan Nazarbayev, which bore all the hall­marks of an oli­garchic dic­ta­tor­ship, facil­i­tat­ed the plun­der­ing of this Central Asian nation. In addi­tion to Nazarbayev and his rel­a­tives, his entire gov­ern­men­tal appa­ra­tus and numer­ous inter­me­di­aries trans­ferred mon­ey abroad.

Investigations into Kazakh oli­garchs in Britain have been ongo­ing for some time, with spe­cial­ized groups ded­i­cat­ed to this issue. It is pos­si­ble that this year, key fig­ures will be tar­get­ed, and they may come under one of the anti-cor­rup­tion laws.

Who could face sanctions?

The assets of Karim Massimov’s per­son­al financier Aigul Nuriyeva in the United Kingdom may come under scruti­ny by law enforce­ment agen­cies. The assets of oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Kazakh elite are also at risk.

At the end of last year, in his account on X, the new British Foreign Secretary, Labour Party mem­ber David Lammy, effec­tive­ly announced the launch of a nation­al cam­paign against “dirty mon­ey” in the United Kingdom. This pri­mar­i­ly con­cerns the assets of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from high-risk countries—kleptocratic autoc­ra­cies and nations with opaque finan­cial sys­tems as list­ed in var­i­ous inter­na­tion­al clas­si­fi­ca­tions (includ­ing the FATF). These include states in Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and the post-Soviet space.

The fight against for­eign­ers’ “dirty mon­ey” was not only a cen­tral theme in Lammy’s elec­tion cam­paign but also a key plat­form for the Labour Party, which achieved a resound­ing vic­to­ry in the UK par­lia­men­tary elec­tions in July last year.

The effort to ver­i­fy the legal­i­ty of assets acquired in the UK by for­eign­ers from “high-risk” coun­tries will be coor­di­nat­ed by influ­en­tial British politi­cian and fel­low Labour Party mem­ber Margaret Hodge. In Kazakhstan, she became known after pub­lish­ing the so-called “Hodge List”—a com­pi­la­tion of Kazakh bil­lion­aires close to Nursultan Nazarbayev and his fam­i­ly, whom she accus­es of involve­ment in the January 2022 events and mon­ey laun­der­ing in the UK.

Aigul Nuriyeva-Ishan: Her lavish investments in real estate and secret role in Kazakh unrest

Among those list­ed is the for­mer head of Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee, Karim Massimov, who was con­vict­ed in Kazakhstan for attempt­ing a coup, and his per­son­al financier, Aigul Nuriyeva. She is the only indi­vid­ual in the Hodge List against whom spe­cif­ic alle­ga­tions have been made—allegedly facil­i­tat­ing a bribe to Massimov from the Swedish telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­ny Telia. The case was ulti­mate­ly hushed up, but the Labour Party seems to hold a dif­fer­ent view on the matter.

Over sev­er­al years of work­ing in enti­ties affil­i­at­ed with Massimov, Nuriyeva amassed a sub­stan­tial for­tune, enabling her to acquire lux­u­ry real estate worldwide—from Hong Kong to France and the United Kingdom. In London, Aigul Nuriyeva, who uses the sur­name of her for­mer hus­band, Ishan, spent near­ly £12 mil­lion on two apart­ments in the ultra-exclu­sive Regent’s Park area (now val­ued at dou­ble that amount). The total area of her prop­er­ties is almost 7500 square ft. Both apart­ments span mul­ti­ple floors and offer a view of Regent’s Park. However, in the spring of last year, Nuriyeva decid­ed to launch an exten­sive ren­o­va­tion project to com­bine the two apart­ments into one.

The rede­vel­op­ment required approval from archi­tec­tur­al author­i­ties, which helped iden­ti­fy the own­er of these expen­sive properties.

Who lives near Aigul Nuriyeva-Ishan?

Close to Nuriyeva-Ishan, apart­ments have been pur­chased by the founders of Kazakhstan’s largest off­shore net­work, Meridian Capital. Two apart­ments belong to Yevgeny Feld and his wife Gulnara Zhokebayeva, anoth­er two to Askar Alshinbayev and his wife Saida, and three more are owned by their son Adil.

Nazarbayev’s relatives invested tens, perhaps hundreds, of millions in UK real estate

Although they are not on Margaret Hodge’s list, Nazarbayev’s relatives—billionaire Timur Kulibayev and his wife Dinara, Dariga Nazarbayeva, her son Nurali, and her sis­ter Aliya—are includ­ed. Nazarbayev’s nephew, Kairat Satybaldy, who was con­vict­ed at home for embez­zling bil­lions, and his name­sake, Dariga Nazarbayeva’s for­mer son-in-law Kairat Boranbayev, are also listed.

Additionally, Labour has tar­get­ed Vladimir Kim, whose daugh­ters own prop­er­ties in the UK worth hun­dreds of mil­lions of pounds, ERG share­hold­ers Alexander Mashkevich and Patokh Chodiev, and anoth­er over­seas prop­er­ty enthu­si­ast, Alexander Klebanov, along with his son Yakov. The list includes over a dozen promi­nent Kazakh names. It is like­ly that some of them will come under scruti­ny by finan­cial con­trol author­i­ties and jour­nal­ists this year.

Original arti­cle: Leeds TV