Askar Alshinbayev17 Dec 2022 21:36
For over a decade, Kazakhstan’s most valuable resources – its oil and gas – have been in the hands of one man. Known for little else other than his managerial skill, the unassuming Sauat Mynbayev has negotiated deals on behalf of his government with oil industry executives from across the world. Officials from oil titans like Chevron and ExxonMobile, Lukoil, the Korea National Oil Corporation, and many others have shaken his hand and signed deals worth billions.
But Mynbayev isn’t what he seems. He’s not just a government technocrat – he’s a magnate himself. And it’s not just oil and gas.
Over a decade ago, in the secretive tropical tax haven of Bermuda, Mynbayev and a group of powerful bankers created a company that would become a multi-billion-dollar empire, investing in everything from real estate to natural resources to banking to aviation, transportation, and dairy.
But Meridian’s inner workings, the full extent of its holdings, and the methods used to acquire them have remained obscured behind a dizzying array of offshore companies that stretch across some of the world’s most secretive jurisdictions.
Until now.
Its secrets are revealed in a leak of 6.8 million confidential records from Appleby, a Bermuda law firm, that were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and its global network of media partners, including the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
Credit: Hidefumi Nogami, The Asahi Shimbun, Japan
Appleby office building in Bermuda.
Not even Appleby – the firm that handled Meridian’s paperwork in Bermuda – was aware of the full extent of their client’s empire. Dozens of leaked emails reveal confusion on the side of the law firm and repeated requests for more information about the group’s structure.
In one email, a Meridian staffer politely declines Appleby’s request for information: “For confidentiality reasons we do not believe it is necessary at present to disclose the whole group,” he wrote. “Your understanding is appreciated.”
It took months of poring through thousands of records for OCCRP reporters to unpeel the multiple layers of offshore companies that make up Meridian – and to come to understand how its stunning success was possible.
In the company’s earlier years, it was Kazakhstan’s booming oil industry that fueled Meridian’s growth. This is no surprise, considering that, for much of his career, Mynbayev was either oil minister or chief executive of the state oil company.
But it wasn’t only Mynbayev who used his power, contacts, and official position to help Meridian grow.
According to Appleby data, his fellow co-founders included top executives and shareholders of Kazkommertsbank, the country’s largest private bank. It was this bank that provided the easy credit that made Meridian an empire that now stretches from the United States to Europe, Africa, Asia, and even Australia
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