Altai Askar, the eldest son of Timur and Dinara Kulibayev and grandson of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, has turned out to be a holder of a second citizenship. He submitted an application for Cypriot citizenship and received it in 2019 — a few months before the investment citizenship programme was closed.
According to the Telegram channel Exit to the Sea, the cost of a Cypriot passport for the main applicant at that time was €2.5 million, which is equivalent to approximately 1.07 billion tenge at the 2019 exchange rate.
The Cypriot golden passport programme was in operation from 2013 to 2020 and allowed wealthy foreigners to obtain citizenship in exchange for investments in the country's economy. After a series of investigations, including material from Al Jazeera which mentioned cases of passports being issued to individuals on international wanted lists, the European Union demanded the closure of the programme.
Subsequently, the Cypriot authorities began the process of revoking previously issued citizenships. To date, around 150 people have been stripped of their golden passports, including the former head of Kazakhstan Kagazy, Maksat Arip, Russian businessmen Oleg Deripaska, Alexei Kuzmichev, Mikhail Gutseriev, and others.
In addition to the Cypriot passport, Altai Askar has a residence permit in Switzerland, where he listed his primary place of residence when investing in the American startup ORBI, founded by Iskander Rakhmanberdiev.
Meanwhile, the Kulibayevs own the Bellerive Castle in Switzerland. In February, the Geneva public prosecutor's office launched an investigation into the purchase of this asset to establish the legality of the source of funds. Previously, a court in the canton of Vaud annulled the Kulibayevs' permit for the reconstruction of their Fleur du Lac hotel in the suburbs of Lausanne.
It is noted that in Russia, Altai Askar owns a flat of 114.5 m² in the Mercury Tower of the Moscow City business centre. The apartment is located on the 47th floor and is valued at approximately 60 million rubles (around 400 million tenge).
Also in the property of the Kulibayevs' son are apartments measuring 633 m² in the Marina Residences complex on Palm Jumeirah island in Dubai. Their market value is estimated at nearly 2 billion tenge.