The daughter of one of the co-owners of Eurasian Resources Group (ERG) Patokh Chodiev – Munisa – received a diplomatic passport of Kazakhstan in January 2003. At the same time, she already held Belgian and Russian citizenships, which contradicts national legislation prohibiting multiple citizenship. In 2013, the document was renewed.
According to the Telegram channel "Access to the Sea", the passport was issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which did not take into account Chodieva's foreign citizenships.
At the same time, Munisa Chodieva had no grounds for obtaining a diplomatic passport: she did not hold any government office, did not reside in Kazakhstan, and spent most of her time in Moscow and London.
It is reported that the Chodiev family's interest in a Kazakh diplomatic passport may be linked to a lengthy legal process in Belgium. There, a case against Patokh Chodiev regarding possible money laundering and "kickbacks" to the company Tractebel for access to the energy market of Kazakhstan was heard over the course of a decade and a half.
Ultimately, the businessman's family pleaded guilty and paid a fine of $23 million (12.5 billion tenge) to the Belgian budget. Simultaneously, another scandal erupted around Chodiev's acquisition of Belgian citizenship: the mayor of Waterloo, Serge Kubla, was accused of assisting the family in circumventing procedures. Thus, the Kazakh diplomatic passport for the daughter could have been seen as a "backup option" in case of complications with the Belgian authorities.
The Chodiev family also faced problems in the United Kingdom. In 2022, Member of Parliament Margaret Hodge included Patokh Chodiev on a list of "Kazakh kleptocrats" and called for an investigation into the sources of his assets in the UK. Following the victory of the Labour Party, the investigation received official status.
According to extracts from the UK land registry, the Chodiev family owns two apartments and four parking spaces in the Panoramic residential complex, purchased in 2000 for £5 million (3.7 billion tenge). Today they are valued at £10 million (7.4 billion tenge).
The assets are registered under the company Panoramic Holdings Limited on the Isle of Man, whose ultimate beneficiary is Munisa's mother – Gulnara Chodieva. Munisa herself used this address to register her companies.
Gulnara Chodieva acquired comparable property value in the Moscow region, in the Nikolina Gora settlement on the Rublyovo-Uspenskoye Highway. Since 2020, Munisa Chodieva has also been registered there.
In Kazakhstan, Munisa Chodieva, together with her father, is a party to a legal dispute with the son of Patokh Chodiev's former partner – Shukhrat Ibragimov. The conflict concerns control over the "Eurasian Financial Company". According to reports from Kazakh media, the process is currently not going in favour of the Chodiev family.