Rakhat Aliyev

Rakhat Mukhtaruly Aliyev (Рахат Мұхтарұлы Әлиев, Rahat Mūhtarūly Äliev; 10 December 1961 – 24 February 2015) was a senior official of the government of Kazakhstan who died in an Austrian prison awaiting trial on charges of murder.

The money originated in the late 1990s, when Aliyev was head of the tax office in Kazakhstan.

According to reports, Aliyev amassed a large fortune through defrauding a variety of companies and services while enjoying protection as son-in-law of the President, one of which was the Kazakhstani state soccer team.

All of the financial interests were placed inside START Management consulting GmbH, a Viennese-based firm.

The two men, lbrayev and Afanasenko, claimed that in April 2000, Aliyev tortured them for a total of 48 hours wanting them to confess that Kazhegeldin had been plotting a coup in Kazakhstan against Nazarbayev.

According to the lawyer of the two accusers, Lothar de Maizière, they addressed law enforcement of Malta demanding a criminal case but the authorities allegedly never followed through.

In 2005, the investigation into this arrangement began when Wiesbaden were reportedly alerted about Armoreal Trading's suspicious loan activity.

Between March 2006 and January 2007, €1 million in sponsorship money disappeared from START accounts.

Aliyev was accused of killing the Kazakh opposition leader, Altynbek Sarsenbayev in February 2006 according to Kazakh prosecutors.

In February 2007, he was appointed to his second tour as Kazakhstan's ambassador to Austria and to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, before being relieved of his post and losing his diplomatic immunity.

Until June 2007, Aliyev was married to Dariga Nazarbayeva, the eldest daughter of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Nothing came of the complaint and the issue lay dormant until spring 2007, when three Austrian banks, Schoellerbank AG, Privitnvest Bank AG and M&A Privatbank AG, reported transactions involving Aliyev's company to the Austrian Interior Minister.

The timing of these reports coincided with the divorce of Aliyev with his first wife, the daughter of the President of Kazakhstan, and his falling out of favour with the ruling family.

All of his enterprises’ bank accounts were then blocked.

Despite this, the contract between the two companies was renewed in early 2007 and 403,000 euros were transferred to START's account.

The Kazakhstan government found Aliyev guilty of treason for attempting a coup against the Kazakh president.

Aliyev allegedly tortured the two bodyguards of Akezhan Kazhegeldin to get them to confess to a coup d'état.

Aliyev reportedly kidnapped two managers of Nurbank in 2007; their bodies were found in 2011.

In 2008, the Kazakh court convicted him in absentia of commissioning the double murders.

MBR was sold to a Dubai-based company in March 2010.

Armoreal Trading was liquidated in December 2010 while an Austrian company known as Veitlissen transferred 2.4 million Euro to A&P Power Ltd. In March 2011, A.V. Maximus Holding was sold to A&P Power Ltd and renamed Zurich Asset management.

In December 2013, prosecutors reportedly released findings that Aliyev ordered the assassination.

After hiding in Malta to avoid an Interpol warrant for his arrest, and attempting to gain Cypriot citizenship, Aliyev was taken into custody in June 2014 by Austrian authorities on charges that include kidnapping and murder.

He was jailed at the Josefstadt prison pending trial, and was placed under watch as a suicide risk.

Aliyev, who portrayed himself as a dissident after falling out with Kazakhstan's leadership, said that he was not guilty and the charges against him were politically motivated.

Aliyev's money was allegedly fed into two offshore companies, A.V. Maximus SA and Argocom Ltd, both based in the British Virgin Islands.

From here, the money went into A.V. Maximus Holding AG, their parent company.

Reportedly, A.V Maximus SA's British Virgin Island's affiliate received €24.8 million and US$91.4 million, while Agrocom received €15.6 million.

The money was the directed into Armoreal Trading GmbH and S.T.A.R.T Management consulting GmbH, among other subsidiaries.

Loans between these subsidiaries were then sent to Metallwerke Bender Rhineland, some of it via ITR Information Technology GmbH.

Metallwerke Bender Rhineland (MBR) then paid it back through Armoreal trading, ultimately going to A.V. Maximus SA.

Money was returned to A.V. Maximus SA as a return on investments, which enabled the money to be legally wired to A&P Power Ltd via A.V. Maximus Holding AG.

A&A Poweris owned by A&P Power Holdings Ltd, which is housed in Nevis.

Aliyev moved to Malta with his second wife Elnara Shorazova; the two allegedly began to dissolve and reorganize their money laundering network.

January 2014, the office filed a notion to start a new case against Aliyev and the former head of National Security of Kazakhstan, Alnus Masayev, related to the involvement in the opposition leader's murder as well as his bodyguard and his lawyer.

His trial was planned to start in Vienna in first half of year 2015.

Austrian legal circles were giving much attention to this high-profile criminal case in which a former diplomat was facing murder charges.

He was chief of Kazakhstan's tax police, deputy chief of the KNB state security service (Kazakhstan's successor to the Soviet KGB), ambassador to Austria, and first vice foreign minister.

While serving in those government posts, Aliyev amassed a fortune in the banking, oil refining, news media, telecommunications, and agricultural commodities sectors.

He was born in Almaty.