ALMATY, Kazakhstan — The death of Bakhyt Ibrahim in March 2024, found lifeless in his Almaty home after an interrogation by Kazakhstan’s Financial Monitoring Agency, was quickly labeled a suicide. But for those tracking the murky collapse of Qazaq Banki — and the entanglements of one of its key figures, billionaire Dinmukhamet Idrisov — the event was yet another red flag in a trail of suspicious deaths, unpaid loans, and financial structures that seem designed to absorb public money and erase private liability.
Ibrahim, convicted in 2020 for helping orchestrate the embezzlement of nearly 144 billion tenge from Bank RBK, was a former associate of Idrisov. Investigators had recently questioned him regarding loans disbursed by Qazaq Banki — a financial institution tied to Idrisov through ownership and influence. Ibrahim’s death marked the fourth mysterious fatality among high-level executives involved in the case.
But while lower-tier operatives served prison sentences or died under uncertain circumstances, Dinmukhamet Idrisov’s vast financial empire — from gold mines to real estate developments to offshore accounts — has largely evaded the consequences. Through shell companies, favorable legal outcomes, and strategic bankruptcies, Idrisov has repeatedly emerged unscathed from scandals that would ruin most men.
From Street-Level Manager to Dollar Millionaire
Born under Soviet rule, Idrisov began his career as a public utilities manager with a modest monthly wage. Today, his estimated fortune is around $415 million, and his name regularly appears in Forbes Kazakhstan. His flagship holding, Ordabasy Group, has stakes in energy, infrastructure, and banking. But critics say Idrisov’s most polished skill may be his ability to borrow large sums — and then quietly leave debts behind.
Central to that strategy is the careful orchestration of overlapping financial interests, where banks, borrowers, and guarantors all appear to lead back to the same hand.
The Vanishing Guarantees
In one of the earliest and most illustrative episodes, a company tied to Idrisov — OIK-Stroytekhsnab — received a $193 million loan from BTA Bank in 2007, guaranteed by Ordabasy Corporation. But following the 2009 nationalization of BTA, bank officials claimed that the original guarantee letters had mysteriously gone missing. No enforcement action followed. Meanwhile, according to Kazakh media reports, Ordabasy even collected interest payments on the deposit it had placed to secure the loan — a paradox in financial accountability.
As one journalist in Kazakhstan acidly observed: if your bank lost your loan contract, would you still be released from repayment — and paid interest? “Probably not. That’s why you’re not an oligarch.”
A Pattern of Defaults
In 2019, a court in Almaty ordered Idrisov and several associated companies to repay over 1.5 billion tenge to the Special Finance Company DSFK — an entity created to recover public funds previously deposited in RBK Bank. Idrisov had personally guaranteed the loan with over $2 million on a savings account. The borrower defaulted. The court ruled in DSFK’s favor.
The same year, DSFK filed another suit for an even larger loan — $34.2 million extended to a MAG Corporation subsidiary. Again, Idrisov had pledged $13 million as a personal guarantee via RBK Bank. Again, the loan went unpaid. DSFK was awarded $38 million in damages. These cases, buried in Kazakhstan’s judicial records, suggest a consistent template: loans are secured by promises, then defaulted — while Idrisov remains insulated behind layers of shifting liabilities and hollowed-out companies.
Offshore Lifelines
Despite the domestic legal chaos, Idrisov’s wealth has quietly expanded abroad. Investigations have linked his holdings to luxury real estate and companies in Singapore, Latvia, Cyprus, and possibly Turkey — often through intermediaries or shell entities. In 2023, Kazakhstan’s financial regulator publicly acknowledged that Idrisov had failed to fully repay a 25 billion tenge loan to the National Bank of Kazakhstan. The loan, taken out via Qazaq Banki under his control, remains unresolved.
Complicating matters, neither the central bank nor the prosecutor’s office has offered transparency about enforcement mechanisms. Critics suggest the state’s reluctance to hold Idrisov accountable points to longstanding elite protection — or fear of financial fallout.
Legal Maneuvers and “Bankruptcies of Convenience”
In 2012, Ordabasy Corporation declared bankruptcy. The timing was strategic: the company was being sued for 81.4 billion tenge in damages after a construction dispute involving a mall project in Almaty. The plaintiff — a finance company named BSB — had paid billions into the project, only to find itself holding worthless guarantees. After prolonged litigation, Idrisov settled by handing over shares in a gold mining firm, AltynEX Company. He later claimed he was coerced into the handover under pressure from the Prosecutor General’s Office — a claim dismissed by authorities.
Since then, several other companies tied to Idrisov have undergone restructuring, liquidation, or asset freezes. Public records show asset arrests on the individual entrepreneur account of “IDRISOV D.A.” and on multiple subsidiaries of the Ordabasy Group. Meanwhile, other companies continue to operate under new names or new legal shells, issuing guarantees and accepting funds as if the past never happened.
The RBK and Sberbank Links
RBK Bank — where Idrisov was a shareholder — features prominently in many of these loan arrangements. Several cases reveal a circular pattern: RBK would extend large loans to Idrisov-controlled firms, backed by financial guarantees from other Idrisov entities. The guarantees would later be contested, invalidated, or rendered irrelevant through restructuring or legal maneuvering. In effect, Idrisov appeared to be lending to himself, using state-backed banks as intermediaries — and ultimately as absorbers of loss.
In 2023, Russian state-owned Sberbank filed a legal claim in Moscow to recover over 1.5 billion rubles (approximately $18 million) from one of Idrisov’s firms, Kazakhstan Utility Systems. The case is still pending. Also under dispute is a debt of 107 million tenge owed by Idrisov’s “Greenbus” company to a tire supplier — a relatively small sum, but one that further illustrates a pattern of unpaid obligations to vendors, creditors, and partners.
“I Owe Everyone — and Forgive Them All”
The phrase has become a dark joke in Kazakhstan’s financial press: Kому я должен — всем прощаю — “To those I owe, I forgive.” It captures the essence of how Idrisov operates: debt is an instrument of leverage, not a burden of obligation. As long as assets can be moved and liability transferred, the system works — for those who know how to play it.
What separates Idrisov from the many failed oligarchs in Kazakhstan’s recent history is not only his political connections or business acumen, but his legal agility and resilience in the face of scandal. While his name appears in courtrooms, leaked files, and investigative reports, no criminal charges have stuck. No government watchdog has publicly named him in wrongdoing. And no major international enforcement action has yet materialized.
The Case for Accountability
For Kazakhstan, Idrisov’s saga is more than a tale of corporate irresponsibility. It is a test of institutional integrity. When state-backed banks repeatedly extend massive loans to politically connected borrowers — and fail to recover the funds — public confidence erodes. With international observers already scrutinizing Kazakhstan’s financial system for transparency and compliance, the continued opacity surrounding figures like Idrisov presents a risk not only to domestic investors but to global markets.
A Culture Above the Law
What makes accountability elusive in Kazakhstan, say observers, is not just legal opacity — but a deeper problem of selective enforcement rooted at the highest levels of power. According to United Nations human rights experts, Kazakhstan has repeatedly failed to align its governance and judicial practices with international standards of rule of law. In reports spanning the past decade, UN special rapporteurs have expressed concern over the independence of Kazakhstan’s judiciary, lack of effective anti-corruption safeguards, and systemic impunity for elites. In cases like Idrisov’s, where vast debts evaporate and investigations stall despite extensive evidence, the problem is not a lack of legal tools — it is the absence of political will. Critics argue that figures in President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s entourage benefit from a parallel justice system, shielded by influence and inertia. When enforcement agencies are selective, and oligarchs remain untouchable, the rule of law becomes a façade — and financial misconduct a tolerated feature of the system rather than an exception.
The question now is whether Kazakhstan’s institutions will finally treat all borrowers equally — or continue to allow its most connected debtors to walk away, their fortunes safely offshore.
