Alma Shalabayeva and her daughter on their way to Italy

Alma Shalabayeva, the wife of Kazakhstan's fugitive banker Mukhtar Ablyazov, and her daughter Alua have left Kazakhstan for Italy, KazTAG reports citing the family lawyer Nurlan Ustemirov. According to him, Shalabayeva with her daughter arrived in Astana and received Italian visa without any difficulties earlier this week. "They’ve got new passports and are now on their way to Italy through Frankfurt," Ustemirov told KazTAG on the day Shalabayeva left Kazakhstan. He also pointed out that elder children of Shalabayeva were to meet them in Italy. Earlier this month the enforcement authorities of Kazakhstan decided to change the measures of pretrial restraint for Alma Shalabayeva from the written pledge not to leave Almaty to a bail. Besides, she was aided in receiving new valid passports. 47-year-old Alma Shalabayeva had been living in Italy, carrying a reportedly invalid passport issued by the Central African Republic. Along with her minor daughter she was deported to Kazakhstan late May by Italian authorities. But 1.5-months later a delayed change of the official mind came in Italy accompanied by a row around the Italian Interior Minister and Vice PM Angelino Alfano. And the Italian authorities reversed their deportation order. After the deportation Alma Shalabayeva was staying at her parents’ house in Almaty since July 2013. According to the official representative of General Prosecutor’s Office of Kazakhstan Nurdaulet Suindikov, Kazakhstan’s law enforcement authorities had discovered a network of corrupt officials forging passports. Relatives of the former BTA Bank chairman, including Alma Shalabayeva and her daughter, were among those to whose names the forged passports were issued. But at that time she herself was living in Europe.