Ablyazov among disclosed offshore account owners

Former chairman of BTA Bank Mukhtar Ablyazov is among the disclosed owners of offshore accounts, the website of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists writes. According to the website, Ablyazov founded 31 offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands in 2006-2007. Ablyazov is accused of embezzlement of $5 billion from Kazakhstan’s BTA Bank. The businessmen fled from Kazakhstan in 2009 after a criminal case was initiated against him. Ablyazov was granted an asylum in Great Britain. Kazakhstan is requesting the banker’s extradition, because he is charged with major fraud and siphoning off the bank’s funds via dummy companies. Millions of emails and leaked records from offshore tax havens have exposed the identities of thousands of holders of offshore accounts, including the family of the president of Azerbaijan and French President Francois Hollande's one-time campaign treasurer. The alleged involvement of Jean-Jacques Augier adds to the pressure on Hollande, who is already on the defensive after his former budget minister Jerome Cahuzac was charged in a tax fraud probe. Britain's Guardian said the information came from a leak of two million documents and emails which mainly concern the British Virgin Islands, but also the Cayman Islands.