In 2006, a “tulip” revolution took place in Kyrgyzstan. Its result was a change in state power: instead of Askar Akayev, the post of president of the country was taken by Kurmanbek Salievich Bakiev. Until 2010, the family of the new head to a certain extent remained in the shadows. However, after the April coup, Bakiev Maxim, the youngest son of the former president of Kyrgyzstan, became widely known. It was then that the new authorities of the country were charged with financial crimes. Together with his family, he was forced to leave Kyrgyzstan. His parents took refuge in Minsk, but Maxim Bakiyev was put on the international wanted list.
Biography
The former president of Kyrgyzstan, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has two sons. The eldest is Marat, and the youngest, who has become a public figure, is Maxim Bakiev. His biography begins in 1977 in Kuibyshev. There his parents met and got married. When Maxim was 2 years old, the family moved to Kyrgyzstan (Kazarman settlement). Here he grew up and graduated from the Law Faculty of the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University. After graduation, Bakiev Maxim continued his legal education in the UK (1997), and then in the USA (1998).
Career
In parallel with his studies in the UK, he was engaged in legal practice at Interpravo and on issues of supporting developing countries in the advisory board of the English holding Solution Limited. By 2005, Maxim Bakiyev had already grown to become an international expert consultant on strategic planning, financial and legal issues, logistics, geoeconomics and marketing.
During the presidential campaign, Kurmanbek Salievich Bakiev called his son as a qualified and experienced specialist to the campaign headquarters.
A significant milestone in the career began in 2009-2010, when Bakiev Maxim headed the Central Agency for Development, Investment, Innovation (abbreviated as CARIA) in Kyrgyzstan. However, in connection with the April coup, he had to leave this post.
Business
In the summer of 2006, Bakiev Jr., together with the owner of Manas-Bank Valery Belokonem, in shares, registered the investment company Maval Aktivity in Latvia. Officially Bakiev Maxim Kurmanbekovich owned a 50% stake in the company. In addition, the joint work of entrepreneurs facilitated the implementation of many projects in the mining, oil and gas industries in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and South America. Business partners also invested in the creation and development of the Who is Who in Latvia publishing house, Kimmels Riga Brewery. They acquired shares of the football club Blackpool (English Premier League).
Bakiev Maxim from childhood was fond of power sports and in 2007 became president of the Wrestling Federation in Kyrgyzstan. During his leadership, Kyrgyz athletes won silver and bronze medals at the Beijing Olympics.
Personal life
Career growth, business development, periodic trips to foreign countries on professional issues and practice for a long time prevented Bakiev Jr. from thinking seriously about his family. Only in 2009 did the news of his marriage appear in the Kyrgyz press. The choice of Maxim Bakiyev was Aizhan Kenenbayev, daughter of the former mayor of the capital of Bishkek. Soon the couple had a daughter.
Prosecution
When a coup d'etat took place in Kyrgyzstan (2010), Maxim Bakiev was in the United States. Upon learning that he was facing arrest, he went first to Latvia, and then to the UK.This happened in June of that year. However, by then the new authorities in Kyrgyzstan had put him on the wanted list through Interpol. The reason for this was the allegations of fraud and illegal privatization of state property worth millions of dollars (in particular, the mobile company Bitel, the radio and the TV channel “KOORT”).
On October 12, 2012, Maxim Kurmanbekovich Bakiev was detained at the request of the FBI in London, but was soon released on bail of £ 250,000. However, the United States requested the extradition of Bakiev Jr. on charges of insider trading. According to the US prosecutor’s office, he turned Kyrgyzstan into an offshore zone where huge sums of money received by American and European companies in a corrupt way flocked. However, as a result of the court hearing held in December 2012, Maxim Bakiyev was released, and the consideration of the case was postponed until May next year. By the appointed date, the US prosecutor's office withdrew his request for extradition without explanation.
Economic spy
The main charge for Bakiev Jr. was fraud. The most serious and virtuoso operation, according to the new authorities of Kyrgyzstan, is the receipt of large blocks of shares in 13 republican enterprises (including Kyrgyzgaz, Kyrgyztelecom, and Severelectro). All this was conducted through tenders and framed as trust management at the local holding MGN Group. His general director was Evgeny Gurevich, a US citizen. As it turned out later, he was a business partner and longtime acquaintance of Maxim Bakiev.
Unofficial data
In 2010, a huge stream of negative information hit Maxim Bakiyev. Local media in Kyrgyzstan wrote that the outcome of the power of the Bakiyev clan is quite predictable. The youngest son of the president literally played a deck of gold cards, teasing the people of the impoverished country with their exorbitant wealth.
Among other charges, he is charged with participation in an organized crime group during the April clashes and complicity in the killing of civilians (84 people died then), as well as intentionally preventing the Russian government from gaining control of the Dastan enterprise. It is known that it belonged to the USSR Ministry of Defense and is engaged in the production of important components for combat torpedoes that are used by the naval forces of Russia.
The reaction of Bakiev Jr. to all the charges is quite expected. He denies any business in the country, openly states in the media that the new authorities are simply trying to shift all the responsibility for chaos onto his family’s shoulders.
Bakiev Jr. himself often called himself a “CIS-scale businessman” with a reservation not on the size of his fortune, but on the geography of his entrepreneurial activity.
Today
Despite the fact that Bakiev Maxim received the sentence of life imprisonment in Kyrgyzstan in absentia, today, according to the Global Witness public organization, he and his family live in a posh mansion in England, in the town of Raigate. His asylum application in the UK is still pending, and so far for five years he has the right to reside there. However, all this is unconfirmed information. Officially refuses to comment on such a situation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of England for unknown reasons.
