Traces of Nazarbayev’s Funds and Offshores: From Astana to the Caymans

Last week, Orda.kz reported that the private Baitau Development Fund of Nursultan Nazarbayev had accumulated 45 administrative fines over the past year, almost all for traffic violations in Astana and Almaty.

Orda has looked into another similar incident involving a fine from the National Bank.

According to the National Bank of Kazakhstan, the fine was issued after Nazarbayev’s Elbasy Fund transferred one share of EBF LTD, a Cayman Islands–registered company, to the Baitau Fund on April 22, 2024.

The National Bank noted that the fund submitted details of the deal too late, which formally constituted a violation.

Since the organization admitted fault, the fine was set at zero tenge.

The purpose of the move is relatively clear: to bring the Baytau Fund into the list of EBF LTD’s shareholders. But the ultimate goal of this transfer remains unexplained.

We tried to learn more about EBF LTD.

The National Bank said the matter did not fall under its regulatory mandate. So we turned to the Cayman Islands’ corporate registry. There we found the company. From the filings, we learned its office address, its charter capital — just $49,500 — and the names of two directors: Kairat Nagahibayev and Nurlan Aldanov.

Aldanov serves as its first manager, though it is not certain whether he is the same individual listed in the Cayman registry or simply a namesake.

EBF LTD itself was registered on July 15, 2011, as an Exempt Company. 

This status means:

• It cannot conduct business within the Cayman Islands
  
• It is exempt from local taxes (profits, dividends, capital gains)
  
• It is typically used for holding companies, investment funds, trusts, or cross-border transactions
  
• It cannot sell goods or services to Cayman residents, and it cannot own Cayman real estate beyond office premises

The Cayman system does not require public disclosure of shareholders or detailed corporate records, so the trail effectively ends there.

But it resurfaces in Kazakhstan.

In A Diplomatic Town

On June 30, 2021, the Elbasy Fund — the same Nazarbayev structure that transferred one EBF LTD share to Baytau — created a new company with a suspiciously similar name: EBF Finance. It registered the entity at the Library of the First President in Astana.

Then, on March 2, 2022, the Elbasy Fund obtained a 49-year lease on a 13-hectare land plot inside Astana’s diplomatic village.

In one corner of this large area belonging to the Presidential Property Management Department, two cottages with garages and private gates were built, with a separate road laid especially for them.

According to open sources, EBF Finance is engaged in financial services, despite holding no licenses.

The company nonetheless shows strong tax payments: 81 million tenge so far in 2025. It has no court cases or state contracts, but it has picked up several traffic fines — small compared to Baytau’s record.

In April 2023, the Elbasy Fund divested from EBF Finance. The new founder became the Public Foundation “Center for Consulting and Strategic Initiatives.”

The company also changed its legal address to those same two houses on the edge of the diplomatic village. Today, the public cadastral map lists EBF Finance as the rights holder for the two plots and houses.

The Center for Consulting and Strategic Initiatives was established in April 2023. Its founders — Anvar Dosanov, Aidos Mukyshev, and Mukash Aikzhanov — are businessmen with stakes in construction firms, restaurants, and other enterprises.

It is also the founder of the construction company SITALL STROY.

Taken together, these facts suggest a complex chain of asset control through an offshore structure. Nazarbayev’s private funds appear as holders, intermediaries, and at one point direct owners of land and property in one of Astana’s most elite districts.

Why exactly a single share of EBF LTD was shuffled between Nazarbayev’s funds — and what the end goal of the whole scheme might be — remains unanswered.

Original Author: Ilya Astakhov