Investigation: Is Shakhmurat Mutalip Kazakhstan’s New Chosen One? 

The 35-year-old is build­ing an empire span­ning rail­ways, ener­gy and min­ing. Most Kazakhs have nev­er heard of him.

A pho­to post­ed in 2013 on the Russian social media site VKontakte shows a group of young men pos­ing togeth­er at the top of a stair­case. It is unclear when the image was tak­en, but it is geo­t­agged to Askar Tokpanov, bet­ter known as Kazcik, a vil­lage out­side Kazakhstan’s largest city, Almaty.

More than a decade lat­er, at least three of the for­mer school­mates in the pho­to are involved in a net­work of com­pa­nies han­dling con­tracts worth bil­lions of dol­lars from state enti­ties, and two now lead nation­al sports fed­er­a­tions. To believe local and for­eign press reports, one of them is tak­ing over Kazakhstan’s econ­o­my on a month-by-month basis.

Shakhmurat Mutalip, on the far right of the pho­to, is well known in Kazcik but not to the wider Kazakh pub­lic, despite his role lead­ing the nation­al box­ing fed­er­a­tion. Even with­in the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty of Central Asia’s rich­est econ­o­my, he is less rec­og­nized than the all-con­quer­ing com­pa­ny he owns, Integra Construction KZ.

But if ongo­ing talks behind closed doors break in his favor, the 35-year-old could soon con­trol all or part of sev­er­al major Kazakh min­ing com­pa­nies, posi­tion­ing him at the cen­ter of glob­al sup­ply chains for crit­i­cal min­er­als, long-term pur­chase agree­ments with Western firms, and com­pli­cat­ed cred­it rela­tion­ships with sanc­tioned Russian banks.

Screenshot of Financial Times arti­cle on Mutalip’s bid for ERG.

If that prospect is giv­ing inter­na­tion­al observers pause, there is lit­tle sign of hes­i­ta­tion in Kazakhstan.

Last year, anoth­er com­pa­ny linked to Mutalip won a con­tract with Chinese investors to build a $6 bil­lion pow­er plant in the north of the coun­try. Its sub­sidiary is report­ed­ly over­see­ing con­struc­tion of a gas pro­cess­ing facil­i­ty at the super­giant Kashagan oil field.

And Integra is tow­er­ing over the rail indus­try at a time when the net­work is under­go­ing its largest mod­ern­iza­tion since inde­pen­dence, with Kazakhstan at the heart of huge con­nec­tiv­i­ty projects like China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the mul­ti-coun­try Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), also known as the Middle Corridor. 

But before Integra, there is lit­tle to sug­gest that Mutalip was a high-net-worth indi­vid­ual or the own­er of any sig­nif­i­cant com­pa­ny. What’s more, his acqui­si­tion of Integra took place in high­ly unusu­al cir­cum­stances and may have involved less than $100,000 of his own money.

So, what does his near-overnight rise say about the “Just, Strong and Prosperous Kazakhstan” pro­claimed by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev?

And who is Shakhmurat Mutalip, really?

Photo of Shakhmurat Mutalip from an offi­cial biography.

The Right Side of the Tracks

Born in 1990, Mutalip was raised by his moth­er and grand­moth­er and attend­ed School No. 6 in Kazcik, a vil­lage west of Almaty’s airport.

Two teach­ers at the school told The Diplomat he was the only stu­dent in his cohort and the three pre­ced­ing years to receive the state-award­ed Altyn Belgi medal for excellence.

His close friend, Darkhan Kyzaibayev (far left in the pho­to), now his deputy at the box­ing fed­er­a­tion, near­ly matched the achievement.

Together they were part of a cel­e­brat­ed grad­u­at­ing class that also includ­ed Kudrat Shamiev (sec­ond from left in the top pho­to), now Integra’s super­vi­so­ry board chair­man and the head of the nation­al taek­won­do fed­er­a­tion, and Zhankosh Turarov, a famous pro­fes­sion­al box­er.

Darkhan Kyzaibayev is club pres­i­dent of FC Ordabasy, a club Shakhmurat Mutalip report­ed­ly pur­chased this year. Photo from FC Ordabasy’s web­site.

In 2018, after the group had made their first mon­ey in busi­ness, they refur­bished the school library. Now they are return­ing to build a sports facil­i­ty, the teach­ers said.

Media cov­er­age has framed Mutalip’s rise as part of a broad­er shift from “Old Kazakhstan,” dom­i­nat­ed by fig­ures linked to for­mer President Nursultan Nazarbayev, to a “New Kazakhstan” under Tokayev, wide­ly seen as accel­er­at­ing after the bloody, regime-rat­tling unrest of January 2022.

In November, Bloomberg described Mutalip’s pur­port­ed bid for a min­ing com­pa­ny, Kazzinc, as part of a trend where­in “con­struc­tion tycoons” are shift­ing into min­ing, “under­lin­ing how new mon­ey is edg­ing out inter­ests con­nect­ed to the country’s pre­vi­ous president.”

But the avail­able evi­dence rais­es doubts over whether Mutalip could have been described as either a “tycoon,” or “new mon­ey,” until very recently. 

In addi­tion to a major­i­ty stake in Kazzinc, Mutalip is report­ed­ly angling for a minor­i­ty stake in Eurasian Resources Group (ERG). Together, the com­pa­nies pro­duce zinc, gold, lead, cop­per, fer­rochrome, and a range of crit­i­cal min­er­als at the cen­ter of the glob­al scram­ble to secure sup­ply chains.

The pro­posed deal for Kazzinc, cur­rent­ly con­trolled by Glencore, has been val­ued at $4 bil­lion and over in press reports.

During an inter­view with jour­nal­ist Vadim Boreiko’s pop­u­lar YouTube chan­nel, Giperborey, for­mer prime min­is­ter-turned gov­ern­ment crit­ic Akezhan Kazhegeldin ques­tioned how “a boy from Integra who couldn’t tell zinc from sil­ver” could be involved in such talks.

Bloomberg report­ed on Mutalip’s acqui­si­tion of Altynalmas for an undis­closed fee in March 2026.

Discussions around a poten­tial stake in ERG, which is 40 per­cent owned by the Kazakh state, have report­ed­ly exceed­ed $1 bil­lion, though it remains unclear how either deal would be financed. ERG itself car­ries debt to sanc­tioned Russian banks, report­ed­ly ser­viced under a U.S. OFAC exemption.

While talks around ERG and Kazzinc have drawn inter­na­tion­al atten­tion, Mutalip’s com­pa­ny, Central Asia Resources Holding Ltd, in March announced the acqui­si­tion of anoth­er major min­ing com­pa­ny, Altynalmas, with lit­tle pri­or report­ing. In 2024, Altynalmas pro­duced near­ly 16 tonnes of gold ahead of record prices last year. 

In February the com­pa­ny held a press tour of one of Kazakhstan’s largest gold mills, which it said had been com­plet­ed recent­ly, with $266 mil­lion in invest­ments. The val­ue of the trans­ac­tion has not been dis­closed. Central Asia Resources Holding Ltd was con­tact­ed for comment. 

Changing of the Guard?

Mutalip assumed own­er­ship of Integra Construction KZ at a time when he was chair­man of its super­vi­so­ry board and while the company’s own­er – Orifdzhan Shadiev – was under pres­sure from cred­i­tors and liquidators.

Unlike Mutalip, Shadiev is a long-estab­lished fig­ure in Kazakhstan’s busi­ness elite, often appear­ing in local Forbes lists that have so far ignored the former. 

Orifdzhan Shadiev. Screenshot tak­en from Kaztag.kz

His uncle, Patokh Chodiev, an Uzbekistan-born Belgian nation­al and for­mer Soviet diplo­mat, found­ed Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (now ERG) with his now deceased part­ners Alexander Mashkevitch and Alijan Ibragimov.

The “troi­ka,” as they came to be known, are sym­bols of the country’s first post-Soviet busi­ness elite.

Integra orig­i­nat­ed as a track repair sub­sidiary of the state rail com­pa­ny, Kazakhstan Temir Zholy, before pass­ing into Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation – then FTSE-list­ed – only to be sold by the group in 2012 to Shadiev.

Mutalip acquired Integra in a series of trans­ac­tions begin­ning in 2021 that were lat­er chal­lenged in court as sham arrange­ments designed to shield Shadiev’s assets.

At the cen­ter of the activ­i­ty was a com­pa­ny called Altynstroy, which acquired 100 per­cent of Integra in April 2021, when Mutalip was the company’s CEO. By June, he had become chair­man of the super­vi­so­ry board and a co-own­er of Altynstroy.

On September 9, 2022, Mutalip became Integra’s sole own­er, acquir­ing 99.9 per­cent for more than 770 mil­lion tenge via his com­pa­ny Management & Construction Ltd and the remain­ing 0.1 per­cent personally. 

The total price equat­ed to around $1.6 mil­lion – a frac­tion of the company’s appar­ent val­ue and well below the 4.5 bil­lion tenge it paid in tax­es (around $14 mil­lion) that year.

Furthermore, court doc­u­ments seen by The Diplomat indi­cate that Management & Construction received a loan of exact­ly the same amount that it paid for Integra six months after the trans­ac­tion. That loan came from a com­pa­ny, A.E.C.-Standard, that was linked to Integra through man­age­ment personnel.

A.E.C.-Standard sub­se­quent­ly request­ed a repay­ment from Management & Construction of just 5 per­cent of the loan, effec­tive­ly writ­ing off the remainder.

According to his offi­cial biog­ra­phy, Kudrat Shamiev (right) began work­ing at Integra ear­li­er than Mutalip, in 2015. Photo from social media.

Kazakhstan’s cen­tral bank chal­lenged the legal­i­ty of the trans­ac­tion, win­ning a rul­ing in 2023 declar­ing it invalid. That deci­sion was over­turned by the Supreme Court in 2024. The cen­tral bank by that point had dropped claims on Shadiev’s phys­i­cal assets and did not object to the ruling.

Shadiev was con­vict­ed in July 2023 over a col­lat­er­al sub­sti­tu­tion scheme unre­lat­ed to Integra but did not serve extend­ed jail time. He is still bat­tling the cen­tral bank over out­stand­ing penal­ties in rela­tion to his col­lapsed bank­ing business. 

In the time elapsed, Integra has gone stratospheric.

In 2024, Integra’s turnover was esti­mat­ed by media at near­ly 419 bil­lion tenge, or close to $900 mil­lion, dou­ble its fig­ure for 2023.

In 2025, accord­ing to the pub­lic records por­tal Adata.kz, the com­pa­ny had gov­ern­ment con­tracts worth close to $4 bil­lion, with Kazakhstan Temir Zholy account­ing for most of the value.

That out­sized fig­ure seem­ing­ly does not include oth­er super-lucra­tive projects like the pow­er plant in north­ern Kazakhstan, or the gas pro­cess­ing plant in Kashagan, which were award­ed to legal­ly sep­a­rate vehi­cles tied to the same ben­e­fi­cia­ry – Mutalip. 

Frontmen Inc.

Curiously, Mutalip is not even the first per­son that some com­men­ta­tors asso­ciate with Integra.

In two inter­views last year, out­spo­ken busi­ness­man Kairat Reimov linked the com­pa­ny to a man called Gadzhi Gadzhiev instead. Independent and oppo­si­tion media have por­trayed Gadzhiev as a rapa­cious infor­mal power­bro­ker strad­dling Kazakhstan’s bor­der with China, a view Reimov echoed.

These claims remain unproven, and there is no evi­dence Gadzhiev has faced inves­ti­ga­tion by Kazakh author­i­ties for any crime.

The Diplomat wrote to the Weightlifting Federation, which he heads, for comment. 

Gadzhi Gadzhiev, head of Kazakhstan’s weightlift­ing fed­er­a­tion. Screenshot tak­en from the web­site of the Weightlifting Federation of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

According to his biog­ra­phy on the federation’s web­site, Gadzhiev served as Integra’s man­ag­ing direc­tor from 2015 to 2017, the year it was rebrand­ed from Zhol Zhondeushi to Integra.

Mutalip arrived at the com­pa­ny in a sim­i­lar man­age­r­i­al capac­i­ty in 2020.

Such rumors regard­ing Integra are com­mon, and indica­tive of per­cep­tions of the com­pa­ny. Several busi­ness­men and ana­lysts who spoke to The Diplomat on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty men­tioned the name of a Nazarbayev-era offi­cial, who was char­ac­ter­ized as the dri­ving force behind Integra back when it was still one of a clus­ter of busi­ness­es for­mal­ly con­trolled by Shadiev.

The Diplomat approached Gadzhiev and Integra for comment.

That Shadiev clus­ter includ­ed com­pa­nies like Todini Costruzioni Generali S.p.A, a com­pa­ny with post-war Italian roots and projects out­side Kazakhstan, and Aktobe Rail and Section Works LLP, a major man­u­fac­tur­er or rails.

Screenshot from the web­site of Todini Costruzioni Generali S.p.A.

Corporate records seen by The Diplomat show that Kyzaibayev, Shamiev and Almas Ashirbekov – Shamiev’s deputy at the taek­won­do fed­er­a­tion – are all list­ed as direc­tors of Todini.

Shadiev acquired Todini in 2016 from Salini Impregilo (now Webuild) for around 50 mil­lion euro. In 2021, he divest­ed, just as he did with Integra.

Records show that from June 2021 to September 2024 Mutalip held a minor­i­ty stake in Todini through Altynstroy, the same vehi­cle that briefly owned Integra. Mutalip then exit­ed Altynstroy to be replaced by a Swiss com­pa­ny, Pembal Holdings, with opaque ownership.

During this over­lap, accord­ing to Todini’s con­sol­i­dat­ed finan­cial state­ments for the year 2022, Todini secured a sub­con­tract from Integra worth 16 bil­lion tenge, or around $34 mil­lion, to work on the Dostyk–Moiynty rail line.

From Rails to Riches

Beginning at the Kazakh-Chinese bor­der and run­ning rough­ly 800 kilo­me­ters into the inte­ri­or, the Dostyk-Moiynty line is a key east-west route.

Rails for the project were pro­duced by Aktobe Rail and Section Works LLP, where Kyzaibayev’s bio states that he was chair­man of the super­vi­so­ry board from December 2023 to May 2025. That com­pa­ny, pre­vi­ous­ly owned by Orifdzhan Shadiev ’s father, Kabol Shadiev, con­tracts direct­ly with Kazakhstan Temir Zholy.

Since January 2024, it has been co-owned by Abdulbari Hamidhan, linked to a Istanbul-head­quar­tered logis­tics busi­ness, and Darkhan Yestiyar, who describes him­self as Integra’s man­ag­ing direc­tor for legal affairs. 

An email in Yestiyar’s name is list­ed as the con­tact for Central Asia Resources Holding Ltd, the vehi­cle used in Mutalip’s acqui­si­tion of Altynalmas.

Within a month of Yestiyar becom­ing co-own­er — via enti­ties reg­is­tered in Cyprus and the Netherlands — Aktobe Rail and Section Works secured an eight-year con­tract with Kazakhstan Temir Zholy worth around $750 mil­lion to pro­duce over 650,000 tonnes of rail, with a 50 per­cent upfront allo­ca­tion, con­tract doc­u­men­ta­tion on Adata.kz shows. 

Earlier, under the Shadievs, the com­pa­ny relied on exter­nal financing. 

An inde­pen­dent audit signed off in June 2021 shows out­stand­ing lia­bil­i­ties at the time of $125 mil­lion to Miramonte Investments Ltd, a Cypriot vehi­cle owned by Alisher Usmanov, a Russian-Uzbek bil­lion­aire, via Windfel Properties Ltd. Both Usmanov and the Cypriot vehi­cle were sanc­tioned the fol­low­ing year in con­nec­tion with Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The Diplomat con­tact­ed Yestiyar and Hamidhan to find out if the com­pa­ny still had any expo­sure to Usmanov, but received no response pri­or to publication. 

Integra’s state con­tracts. Source Adata.kz pub­lic records portal.

Mutalip’s biog­ra­phy on the Integra web­site states that he began his work­ing life in his home vil­lage of Kazcik at Bent LLP, anoth­er com­pa­ny embed­ded in the Kazakhstan Temir Zholy net­work. According to his teach­ers, it was his admir­ing school direc­tor who inter­vened to get him the job in 2008. 

From there he rose from an 18-year-old fit­ter of con­crete rail­way sleep­ers to the company’s first vice pres­i­dent by 2015, all while com­plet­ing a dual degree and a Master’s at Turan University in Almaty. A decade on, he sits at the cen­ter of a net­work of com­pa­nies span­ning rail, con­struc­tion, min­ing and eying sev­er­al new sectors.

But how much of his sto­ry was built on paper, and how much in steel?

The Diplomat approached Shakmurat Mutalip and Orifdzhan Shadiev for com­ment.

By Chris Rickleton and Ardak Bukeyeva

April 15, 2026

Original arti­cle: THE DIPLOMAT