MOSCOW+ALMATY/JAN. 11 (The Conway Bulletin) — — A court in Moscow approved the extradition of Kazakh businessman Zhomart Ertaev to Kazakhstan where he is wanted on charges of defrauding Bank RBK of $160m.
Mr Ertaev, who denies the allegations, had tried to claim asylum in Russia because he said that he would not receive a fair trial in Kazakhstan. Special forces police detained him in May in a high-profile swoop on his motorcade outside the Moskva-Citi business centre.
The extradition of Mr Ertaev highlights increased cooperation between the Russian and the Kazakh law enforcement agencies in tracking down and extraditing businessmen wanted for various frauds. It also represents a change of heart by Russian officials who, in October had declined to extradite him.
Previously, Moscow had been viewed by wealthy Kazakhs fleeing from Kazakhstan as a useful stage post. Mukhtar Ablyazov, Kazakhstan’s most high-profile fugitive and President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s number one enemy fled to London via Moscow in 2008/9.
Mr Ertaev’s had left Kazakhstan in around 2009 after being released from detention. He had been tried for defrauding Alliance Bank, where he was the chairman in 2002-7, but was released because the judge said there wasn’t enough evidence against him.
Since then he appears to have lived for at least part of the time in Moscow where he became a director at Alma-TV and also chairman of Troyka-D Bank.
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>>This story was first published in issue 397 of The Conway Bulletin on Jan. 20 2019
