The Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) has launched a pre-trial investigation into the director of the well-known Zhanauzen enterprise "Kezbi", Yerzhan Kezbayev, who is suspected of fraud on an especially large scale.
According to the agency's press service, the executive director of Kezbi LLP is suspected of embezzling 321 million tenge allocated by OzenMunaiGas JSC for employee salaries, as well as failing to pay taxes amounting to 1.5 billion tenge.
On 3 November, Yerzhan Kezbayev was detained.
It is reported that the company under Mr Kezbayev's management entered into contracts with OzenMunaiGas JSC to carry out repair work at a rate of 65 thousand tenge per hour per team.
Soon this amount even had to be increased – to 87 thousand tenge per team to improve the social package for workers, which includes wages, medical benefits, etc.
However, the investigation believes that a significant portion of these funds, namely 321 million tenge, did not go towards improving the workers' social package at all, but was misappropriated by the company's director.
As for the enterprise itself, it is known that Kezbi LLP is one of the first private companies in Kazakhstan to provide servicing for oil companies.
It is worth noting that in 2024, employees of Kezbi LLP twice went on strike, demanding, among other things, higher wages and the dismissal of the company's management.
As a result of negotiations, employees managed to secure a pay rise of 16%, including annual indexation.
The editorial board of the FBRK has established that Kezbi LLP was registered in September 1992 in the city of Zhanaozen, Mangystau Region. Since 2015, the company has paid a total of over 14 billion tenge in taxes.
Furthermore, Kezbi LLP is a party to numerous civil and administrative cases, often concerning labour disputes.
The company's first director and founder is Bitim Kezbayev, whose surname, incidentally, matches that of the suspect Yerzhan Kezbayev.
Bitim Kezbayev was also once the founder of the now-liquidated Orkhon LLP, which specialised in "retail sale of beverages in specialised stores".
As of today, Bitim Kezbayev owns a sole proprietorship engaged in rental and property management.
According to data from the kompra.kz service, there is another company with the same name – the Trade Union of Employees of Kezbi LLP, established in 2007. The union is headed by Yerbol Bitimovich Kezbayev.
Since 2015, the company – registered, incidentally, in the city of Aktau – has paid a total of just 1 tenge in taxes.
The FMA Department for Mangystau Region reports that it is currently carrying out investigative measures aimed at establishing the circumstances of the embezzlement at Kezbi LLP.
Recall that in October 2024, employees of the Supreme Audit Chamber (SAC) in the Mangystau and Turkestan regions identified violations in the use of borrowed funds by certain quasi-public sector entities.
In September of this year, prosecutors in the Mangystau Region uncovered embezzlement during an audit of the legality of spending budget funds at a sports institution, where, it emerged, the chief accountant had illegally appropriated budget funds totalling 117 million tenge.