In the Mangystau Region, the former managing director of the oilfield services company Kezbi LLP, Yerzhan Kezbayev, has been convicted. The court found him guilty of embezzlement on an especially large scale and tax evasion.
According to Lada.kz, in 2022–2023, Kezbayev illegally appropriated part of the funds allocated by Ozenmunaigas JSC for the wages of workers engaged in major and underground well repairs.
Of the 70% of the total amount stipulated by contracts for wages in 2022, only 51.5% was actually allocated, and in 2023 — 57.7%. The remaining 1.45 billion tenge were used for other purposes: bonuses, festive events, sponsorship aid, and paying off the company's old debts.
Furthermore, the court established that Kezbayev submitted deliberately false information about the enterprise's income to the tax authorities, filing "zero" tax declarations. This led to tax evasion totalling 1.57 billion tenge. Thus, the total amount of damage caused exceeded 3 billion tenge.
According to the prosecution, to conceal the schemes, Kezbayev instructed subordinates to sign documents on behalf of his father — the company's nominal head, who no longer took part in operational management due to health reasons.
Yerzhan Kezbayev himself partially admitted his guilt. He explained that he acted under conditions of financial crisis: in 2023, the company allegedly faced mass strikes and funding delays.
In the end, the court found Yerzhan Kezbayev guilty and sentenced him to 10 years' imprisonment with a lifelong ban from holding managerial positions in the oil and gas industry for a period of 10 years.
As part of a civil lawsuit, the court ordered the recovery of 321 million tenge in favour of Ozenmunaigas JSC, and more than 1.5 billion tenge in favour of the Department of State Revenues for the Mangystau Region.
It will be recalled that it was reported last November that the Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) had launched a pre-trial investigation into the director of the well-known Zhanaozen enterprise "Kezbi", Yerzhan Kezbayev.
Shortly before this, employees of Kezbi LLP had gone on strike twice, demanding wage increases and the dismissal of the company's management.