Investors with criminal connections: How the owners of key real estate properties are changing in Bishkek
The newly-created company RCA Living, to which the authorities gave 50 hectares of the old Bishkek hippodrome Ak-Kula for development, and the company RCA Bishkek, to which the business center Ai-Peri in the center of the capital is being sold, are indirectly connected with the former partner of Kamchy Kolbaev, Kloop and Temirov Live found out. Its owners got the hippodrome for a third cheaper, and the business center with the land - almost half the estimated value.
On November 13, 2024, a representative of the State Property Agency told the Tazabek publication that the only bid for the purchase of the Ai-Peri business center was submitted by the previously unknown RCA Living LLC. The building, with an area of almost 6,000 m² and land in the center of Bishkek, was valued at 559.15 million soms by experts hired by the State Property Agency.
The authorities claim that they have already held two auctions, but no other bidders for Ai-Peri have been found. A third auction was supposed to take place on November 26, but again no one showed up, and RCA Living refused to buy it in favor of a company with a similar name, RCA Bishkek . The building will be sold to them for a little more ( possibly because they previously sold 98.41% of the state-owned stake in the business center, and now they have sold all 100% ): for 568.2 million soms, or $1,115 per square meter.
This is cheaper than the average market price for such a square in the center of the capital. According to calculations by the Center for Independent Assessment and Analytics "Business Expert", in 2023 it cost $1,382. Now experts estimate such a meter at $1,500-2,000. And here is a building with land. A year earlier, the head of the State Committee for National Security Kamchybek Tashiev estimated "Ai-Peri" at $20-25 million. This is 1.77 - 2.22 billion soms.
Business center "Ai-Peri" (in the center). Photo: "Kloop"
From the heirs of a deputy to the family of an authority
The business center is located in the center of Bishkek, at the intersection of Chui Avenue and Isanov Street. The total area of the building is 5,878.3 m². The building of the House of Consumer Services - the beauty salon "Ai-Peri" was built in the late 80s and is included in the list of architectural monuments. After the collapse of the USSR, the beauty salon "Ai-Peri" was corporatized and has partially retained its previous functions to this day: the premises are rented out not only for fast food, for which this building is known, but also for clothing and shoe repair, hairdressing salons, and the like.
The main shareholder of Ai-Peri was the former deputy of the Zhogorku Kenesh, former first vice-president of Kyrgyzaltyn OJSC and president of Manas International Airport JSC Erik Arsaliev. Under Bakiyev, he became famous for the fact that the murdered former head of the presidential administration Medet Sadyrkulov was burned in his Lexus jeep. In 2016, the building of the business center was transferred to the Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund (RKDF) as collateral for a loan issued to the Manas-Handling company , which is now managed by Arsaliev’s daughter.
In 2021, after a long illness, Erik Arsaliev died in Turkey, his 47.7% in the business center passed to his heirs. RKFR extended the pledge agreement for the Ai-Peri building for another two years. And in 2022, Kumash Rysaliev and Aziz Kamchyevich Asanbekov became the key shareholders .
After the murder of crime boss Kamchy Kolbayev, the State Committee for National Security included the building in the list of his assets subject to nationalization. “In the Ai-Peri business center, which was a beauty salon, all the bandits also gathered and made a bar,” the head of the special service Kamchybek Tashiev said in the Zhogorku Kenesh on November 23, 2023.
Read on the same topic:Cryptocurrency scammers of the century: how Orlovsky and Shukhnina extort millions from gullible citizens
Before this, the media reported that the shareholders of Ai-Peri, Aziz Kamchyevich Asanbekov, Bubusara Mavlyanova and Tynara Abdymomunova, sold their shares to the State Property Committee (the amount was not named). However, there is no mention on the Stock Exchange that the state paid them for the shares - it only talks about the transfer of rights. It is also unknown whether the share was bought out from Kumash Rysaliev, but now the state owns 98.41% of the shares of Ai-Peri. It is possible that Rysaliev’s share (he had 20.2%) was confiscated due to his connections with Kolbayev.
Kumash Rysaliev was listed as a co-founder of the Bulat-M hunting farm in the mountains of the Issyk-Kul region - according to the State Committee for National Security, it belonged to a thief in law. The media also called Rysaliev the nominal owner of two of Kolbaev’s land plots in Bishkek. Kaktus assumed that Kumash Rysaliev was the father of the former deputy manager of parliamentary affairs and businessman Rysaliev Taalay Kumashevich, nicknamed Mobi. The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs also linked the latter with Kamchy Kolbaev. Mobi himself denied any connection with crime. In February 2024, he was detained in Dubai at the request of Kyrgyzstan.
But the most interesting figure among the former shareholders is Aziz Kamchyevich Asanbekov. The tax service database contains such a 26-year-old man, whose full name and age would match the eldest son of Kamchybek Asanbekovich Kolbaev (in the crime reports the latter was listed as "K. Asanbek").
On Facebook, we found an account of a young man with this name, he has the Kolbaevs among his friends. On TikTok, there is a photo of him with the late Kamchy Kolbaev and the authority’s youngest son, Ruslan. The comment under it reads: "Aziz is just like his dad."
Photo from Aziz Asanbekov’s Facebook page
Photo of Aziz (left) with Kolbaev
What will happen to Ai-Peri next is unknown. The tenants only know that the new owners are "some Vietnamese". Whether the lease will be extended with them will be known at the shareholders’ meeting on December 18.
53 hectares in installments at a preferential price
Before the Ai-Peri story, the newly-born company RCA Living, which was connected to RCA Bishkek, hit another jackpot: the government gave it the Ak-Kula racetrack for development. Since 1947, it has been one of the first large venues for equestrian games in the capital, with a total area of almost 60 hectares.
Horse racing in Bishkek is still popular today. However, in 2020, the hippodrome was declared unsafe and beyond repair. Later, the authorities started talking about demolishing the hippodrome and that residential high-rise buildings and a business center in the spirit of Moscow City could appear in its place. Now, RCA Living promises to build business centers, residential buildings, parks, schools, and kindergartens here.
This is what the territory of the Ak-Kula hippodrome looks like now. Photo: Kloop 
Render of the Ak-Kula hippodrome development project from the Bishkek City Hall website
The hippodrome was given to RCA Living in the same way as Ai-Peri was given to RCA Bishkek.
In the spring, the capital’s mayor’s office estimated it at 8.7 billion soms (about $100 million). Then officials said that no one responded to the auction, so in August 2024, the Bishkek City Council allowed the hippodrome to be given away directly.
Two months later, it became known that the hippodrome had been leased to the RCA Living company. Earlier, the media reported that, according to an agreement with the authorities, it was to invest more than $300 million in the construction of the hippodrome and transfer $67 million to the capital’s budget. As it turned out later, this was a fee for the period of use of the land plot. This is a third less than the estimated value of the hippodrome. Also, the capital construction department of the Bishkek mayor’s office announced a tender at its own expense for the demolition of the hippodrome buildings.
RCA Living transferred the $6.7 million advance payment under the investment agreement to the Bishkek mayor’s office account on October 15, 2024. The agreement itself could not be found in the public domain.
The authorities are leasing 53 hectares of the hippodrome to RCA Living for 49 years. During this period, more than one generation of owners and residents will change in the buildings built on it. It can be said that the company got the hippodrome land in installments and for a third less than the initial assessment by the mayor’s office.
Now all the buildings on the territory of the hippodrome have been demolished, but construction has not yet begun. It is unclear what awaits the residents of the adjacent private houses. According to them, so far someone has only patched up the holes in the fence.
Red Billionaires with Russian Connections
"RCA Living" was founded just two months before entering the mega-project of hippodrome development. Its director is listed as Vietnamese Phan An Son. On November 27, he ceremoniously signed an agreement with the Bishkek mayor’s office on the transfer of land on behalf of foreign investors.
The company employs three more Vietnamese: Le Quang Hieu, Nguyen Manh Hung and Nguyen Tien Hong Duong. The fee for work permits for two of them in Kyrgyzstan was paid by a leading specialist of the international department of the Bishkek mayor’s office.
Read on the same topic:Former wife of ex-governor of Komi Irina Uyba owns real estate in Italy
The Vietnamese participate in the company through the Gibraltar offshore company Silverdale Limited. Earlier, the media reported that the beneficiary of RCA Living is TNG Global Foundation, an international developer registered in Gibraltar. It belongs to the Vietnamese multi-industry holding ROX Group (former name TNG Holdings Vietnam ).
The owner of TNG Global Foundation in Gibraltar is said to be Vietnamese Tuan Tran. “A distinguished businessman with extensive experience in real estate, retail and financial services in Vietnam and other countries around the world,” the local publication describes him.
Tuan Tran and his wife Nguyen Thi Nguyet Huong
Tuan Tran, 55, graduated from the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute in 1993 and was engaged in business in Russia until 1995.
His wife, Nguyen Thi Nguyet Huong, also studied in Moscow . Until 1996, she also worked in Russia as deputy director of Intelcom-Moscow LLC. Then she was a member of the leadership of the ruling party of Vietnam and the economic committee of the country’s parliament. In 2016, her mandate was annulled: it turned out that she had concealed a second citizenship obtained in Malta. Now this lady heads the board of directors of the family ROX Group. In short, a typical story for a post-communist country, when the party nomenklatura converts power into money.
TNG Global Foundation also owns a share in the construction company RCA Bishkek, which received the Ai-Peri business center. It was founded literally the day before - November 12, 2024. It is headed by the same Nguyen Manh Hung, who is employed by RCA Living, the founders are Kosharny Ivan Anatolyevich and the offshore company Sky Developments Limited.
Ivan Kosharny, a 26-year-old native of Kopeysk in the Chelyabinsk region, calls himself a business consultant for the Hanoi investment company Sam Gia Capital. He helps foreigners in Vietnam find business partners and build relationships with the authorities.
Sky Developments Limited is also registered in Gibraltar. It is run by Adrian Oliveiro and Nilesh Banglorwala. They also manage Silverdale Limited and the entire TNG Global Foundation holding. In general, everything here revolves around the business of Tuan Tran and his party wife.
According to the Vietnamese press, ROX Group, which owns TNG Global Foundation, has invested in 14 industrial parks across the country with a total area of about 3,000 hectares. It also owns many companies, one of the main ones being ROX Living (formerly TNR Holdings), which has assets of more than 3,200 residential properties.
But ROX Group hasn’t been doing so well lately. Many of its companies have seen their profits fall sharply in 2024 , and the group’s six core companies have assets that are almost equal to their debt obligations. As of June 30, 2024, the core company ROX Living had debts that exceeded its assets by 11 times.
Without Kolbaev you can’t go anywhere
But let’s return to RCA Living.
Its second founder is 23-year-old Salim Shabazov. In the fall of 2021, he called himself a sales manager for the construction company BSK Capital Group . This company is known for its long-standing conflict with residents of the 6th microdistrict of Bishkek, where it was going to build a high-rise building on a football field. In the BSK Capital Group YouTube account, Shabazov still sells apartments as a sales specialist.
BSK Capital Group was founded by developer Alexander Makhanov and member of parliament Bakhridin Shabazov, elected in 2021 from the Ishenim party.
Salim Shabazov is not only his subordinate and namesake. He was on the list of trusted persons from the Ishenim party when Bakhridin Shabazov ran for the Zhogorku Kenesh. Salim shared publications about Bakhridin and liked his posts. Recently, Bakhridin Shabazov admitted to Mediakhab that Salim is his second cousin.
And the cherry on the cake: RCA Living is registered in Bishkek at 2 Razakova St., office 3. BSK Capital Group is also registered in this office.
Bahridin Shabazov. Photo: Press service of Zhogorku Kenesh
All this sheds light on the peculiarities of the “struggle for purity of the ranks” under Japarov-Tashiev.
In the past, deputy Shabazov was a co-founder of the construction companies Elite House (Elite House) , Po Domam, and StroyMaximum . Shabazov’s partners in these companies were Altynbek Karchygaev (whose father lobbied for the interests of Sadyr Japarov’s government in the United States for $1 million ) and Timur Fayziev, who was arrested in October 2023 for his connections to the Kamchy Kolbaev organized crime group.
It turns out that the state is taking business away from people whom the head of the State Committee for National Security links to Kamchy Kolbaev with one hand. And with the other hand, it is giving it to people who were also indirectly linked to the deceased authority.
The newly-created company RCA Living, to which the authorities gave 50 hectares of the old Bishkek hippodrome Ak-Kula for development, and the company RCA Bishkek, to which the business center Ai-Peri in the center of the capital is being sold, are indirectly connected with the former partner of Kamchy Kolbaev, Kloop and Temirov Live found out. Its owners got the hippodrome for a third cheaper, and the business center with the land - almost half the estimated value.
On November 13, 2024, a representative of the State Property Agency told the Tazabek publication that the only bid for the purchase of the Ai-Peri business center was submitted by the previously unknown RCA Living LLC. The building, with an area of almost 6,000 m² and land in the center of Bishkek, was valued at 559.15 million soms by experts hired by the State Property Agency.
The authorities claim that they have already held two auctions, but no other bidders for Ai-Peri have been found. A third auction was supposed to take place on November 26, but again no one showed up, and RCA Living refused to buy it in favor of a company with a similar name, RCA Bishkek . The building will be sold to them for a little more ( possibly because they previously sold 98.41% of the state-owned stake in the business center, and now they have sold all 100% ): for 568.2 million soms, or $1,115 per square meter.
This is cheaper than the average market price for such a square in the center of the capital. According to calculations by the Center for Independent Assessment and Analytics "Business Expert", in 2023 it cost $1,382. Now experts estimate such a meter at $1,500-2,000. And here is a building with land. A year earlier, the head of the State Committee for National Security Kamchybek Tashiev estimated "Ai-Peri" at $20-25 million. This is 1.77 - 2.22 billion soms.
Business center "Ai-Peri" (in the center). Photo: "Kloop"
From the heirs of a deputy to the family of an authority
The business center is located in the center of Bishkek, at the intersection of Chui Avenue and Isanov Street. The total area of the building is 5,878.3 m². The building of the House of Consumer Services - the beauty salon "Ai-Peri" was built in the late 80s and is included in the list of architectural monuments. After the collapse of the USSR, the beauty salon "Ai-Peri" was corporatized and has partially retained its previous functions to this day: the premises are rented out not only for fast food, for which this building is known, but also for clothing and shoe repair, hairdressing salons, and the like.
The main shareholder of Ai-Peri was the former deputy of the Zhogorku Kenesh, former first vice-president of Kyrgyzaltyn OJSC and president of Manas International Airport JSC Erik Arsaliev. Under Bakiyev, he became famous for the fact that the murdered former head of the presidential administration Medet Sadyrkulov was burned in his Lexus jeep. In 2016, the building of the business center was transferred to the Russian-Kyrgyz Development Fund (RKDF) as collateral for a loan issued to the Manas-Handling company , which is now managed by Arsaliev’s daughter.
In 2021, after a long illness, Erik Arsaliev died in Turkey, his 47.7% in the business center passed to his heirs. RKFR extended the pledge agreement for the Ai-Peri building for another two years. And in 2022, Kumash Rysaliev and Aziz Kamchyevich Asanbekov became the key shareholders .
After the murder of crime boss Kamchy Kolbayev, the State Committee for National Security included the building in the list of his assets subject to nationalization. “In the Ai-Peri business center, which was a beauty salon, all the bandits also gathered and made a bar,” the head of the special service Kamchybek Tashiev said in the Zhogorku Kenesh on November 23, 2023.
Read on the same topic:Cryptocurrency scammers of the century: how Orlovsky and Shukhnina extort millions from gullible citizens
Before this, the media reported that the shareholders of Ai-Peri, Aziz Kamchyevich Asanbekov, Bubusara Mavlyanova and Tynara Abdymomunova, sold their shares to the State Property Committee (the amount was not named). However, there is no mention on the Stock Exchange that the state paid them for the shares - it only talks about the transfer of rights. It is also unknown whether the share was bought out from Kumash Rysaliev, but now the state owns 98.41% of the shares of Ai-Peri. It is possible that Rysaliev’s share (he had 20.2%) was confiscated due to his connections with Kolbayev.
Kumash Rysaliev was listed as a co-founder of the Bulat-M hunting farm in the mountains of the Issyk-Kul region - according to the State Committee for National Security, it belonged to a thief in law. The media also called Rysaliev the nominal owner of two of Kolbaev’s land plots in Bishkek. Kaktus assumed that Kumash Rysaliev was the father of the former deputy manager of parliamentary affairs and businessman Rysaliev Taalay Kumashevich, nicknamed Mobi. The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs also linked the latter with Kamchy Kolbaev. Mobi himself denied any connection with crime. In February 2024, he was detained in Dubai at the request of Kyrgyzstan.
But the most interesting figure among the former shareholders is Aziz Kamchyevich Asanbekov. The tax service database contains such a 26-year-old man, whose full name and age would match the eldest son of Kamchybek Asanbekovich Kolbaev (in the crime reports the latter was listed as "K. Asanbek").
On Facebook, we found an account of a young man with this name, he has the Kolbaevs among his friends. On TikTok, there is a photo of him with the late Kamchy Kolbaev and the authority’s youngest son, Ruslan. The comment under it reads: "Aziz is just like his dad."
Photo from Aziz Asanbekov’s Facebook page
Photo of Aziz (left) with Kolbaev
What will happen to Ai-Peri next is unknown. The tenants only know that the new owners are "some Vietnamese". Whether the lease will be extended with them will be known at the shareholders’ meeting on December 18.
53 hectares in installments at a preferential price
Before the Ai-Peri story, the newly-born company RCA Living, which was connected to RCA Bishkek, hit another jackpot: the government gave it the Ak-Kula racetrack for development. Since 1947, it has been one of the first large venues for equestrian games in the capital, with a total area of almost 60 hectares.
Horse racing in Bishkek is still popular today. However, in 2020, the hippodrome was declared unsafe and beyond repair. Later, the authorities started talking about demolishing the hippodrome and that residential high-rise buildings and a business center in the spirit of Moscow City could appear in its place. Now, RCA Living promises to build business centers, residential buildings, parks, schools, and kindergartens here.
This is what the territory of the Ak-Kula hippodrome looks like now. Photo: Kloop Render of the Ak-Kula hippodrome development project from the Bishkek City Hall website
The hippodrome was given to RCA Living in the same way as Ai-Peri was given to RCA Bishkek.
In the spring, the capital’s mayor’s office estimated it at 8.7 billion soms (about $100 million). Then officials said that no one responded to the auction, so in August 2024, the Bishkek City Council allowed the hippodrome to be given away directly.
Two months later, it became known that the hippodrome had been leased to the RCA Living company. Earlier, the media reported that, according to an agreement with the authorities, it was to invest more than $300 million in the construction of the hippodrome and transfer $67 million to the capital’s budget. As it turned out later, this was a fee for the period of use of the land plot. This is a third less than the estimated value of the hippodrome. Also, the capital construction department of the Bishkek mayor’s office announced a tender at its own expense for the demolition of the hippodrome buildings.
RCA Living transferred the $6.7 million advance payment under the investment agreement to the Bishkek mayor’s office account on October 15, 2024. The agreement itself could not be found in the public domain.
The authorities are leasing 53 hectares of the hippodrome to RCA Living for 49 years. During this period, more than one generation of owners and residents will change in the buildings built on it. It can be said that the company got the hippodrome land in installments and for a third less than the initial assessment by the mayor’s office.
Now all the buildings on the territory of the hippodrome have been demolished, but construction has not yet begun. It is unclear what awaits the residents of the adjacent private houses. According to them, so far someone has only patched up the holes in the fence.
Red Billionaires with Russian Connections
"RCA Living" was founded just two months before entering the mega-project of hippodrome development. Its director is listed as Vietnamese Phan An Son. On November 27, he ceremoniously signed an agreement with the Bishkek mayor’s office on the transfer of land on behalf of foreign investors.
The company employs three more Vietnamese: Le Quang Hieu, Nguyen Manh Hung and Nguyen Tien Hong Duong. The fee for work permits for two of them in Kyrgyzstan was paid by a leading specialist of the international department of the Bishkek mayor’s office.
Read on the same topic:Former wife of ex-governor of Komi Irina Uyba owns real estate in Italy
The Vietnamese participate in the company through the Gibraltar offshore company Silverdale Limited. Earlier, the media reported that the beneficiary of RCA Living is TNG Global Foundation, an international developer registered in Gibraltar. It belongs to the Vietnamese multi-industry holding ROX Group (former name TNG Holdings Vietnam ).
The owner of TNG Global Foundation in Gibraltar is said to be Vietnamese Tuan Tran. “A distinguished businessman with extensive experience in real estate, retail and financial services in Vietnam and other countries around the world,” the local publication describes him.
Tuan Tran and his wife Nguyen Thi Nguyet Huong
Tuan Tran, 55, graduated from the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute in 1993 and was engaged in business in Russia until 1995.
His wife, Nguyen Thi Nguyet Huong, also studied in Moscow . Until 1996, she also worked in Russia as deputy director of Intelcom-Moscow LLC. Then she was a member of the leadership of the ruling party of Vietnam and the economic committee of the country’s parliament. In 2016, her mandate was annulled: it turned out that she had concealed a second citizenship obtained in Malta. Now this lady heads the board of directors of the family ROX Group. In short, a typical story for a post-communist country, when the party nomenklatura converts power into money.
TNG Global Foundation also owns a share in the construction company RCA Bishkek, which received the Ai-Peri business center. It was founded literally the day before - November 12, 2024. It is headed by the same Nguyen Manh Hung, who is employed by RCA Living, the founders are Kosharny Ivan Anatolyevich and the offshore company Sky Developments Limited.
Ivan Kosharny, a 26-year-old native of Kopeysk in the Chelyabinsk region, calls himself a business consultant for the Hanoi investment company Sam Gia Capital. He helps foreigners in Vietnam find business partners and build relationships with the authorities.
Sky Developments Limited is also registered in Gibraltar. It is run by Adrian Oliveiro and Nilesh Banglorwala. They also manage Silverdale Limited and the entire TNG Global Foundation holding. In general, everything here revolves around the business of Tuan Tran and his party wife.
According to the Vietnamese press, ROX Group, which owns TNG Global Foundation, has invested in 14 industrial parks across the country with a total area of about 3,000 hectares. It also owns many companies, one of the main ones being ROX Living (formerly TNR Holdings), which has assets of more than 3,200 residential properties.
But ROX Group hasn’t been doing so well lately. Many of its companies have seen their profits fall sharply in 2024 , and the group’s six core companies have assets that are almost equal to their debt obligations. As of June 30, 2024, the core company ROX Living had debts that exceeded its assets by 11 times.
Without Kolbaev you can’t go anywhere
But let’s return to RCA Living.
Its second founder is 23-year-old Salim Shabazov. In the fall of 2021, he called himself a sales manager for the construction company BSK Capital Group . This company is known for its long-standing conflict with residents of the 6th microdistrict of Bishkek, where it was going to build a high-rise building on a football field. In the BSK Capital Group YouTube account, Shabazov still sells apartments as a sales specialist.
BSK Capital Group was founded by developer Alexander Makhanov and member of parliament Bakhridin Shabazov, elected in 2021 from the Ishenim party.
Salim Shabazov is not only his subordinate and namesake. He was on the list of trusted persons from the Ishenim party when Bakhridin Shabazov ran for the Zhogorku Kenesh. Salim shared publications about Bakhridin and liked his posts. Recently, Bakhridin Shabazov admitted to Mediakhab that Salim is his second cousin.
And the cherry on the cake: RCA Living is registered in Bishkek at 2 Razakova St., office 3. BSK Capital Group is also registered in this office.
Bahridin Shabazov. Photo: Press service of Zhogorku Kenesh
All this sheds light on the peculiarities of the “struggle for purity of the ranks” under Japarov-Tashiev.
In the past, deputy Shabazov was a co-founder of the construction companies Elite House (Elite House) , Po Domam, and StroyMaximum . Shabazov’s partners in these companies were Altynbek Karchygaev (whose father lobbied for the interests of Sadyr Japarov’s government in the United States for $1 million ) and Timur Fayziev, who was arrested in October 2023 for his connections to the Kamchy Kolbaev organized crime group.
It turns out that the state is taking business away from people whom the head of the State Committee for National Security links to Kamchy Kolbaev with one hand. And with the other hand, it is giving it to people who were also indirectly linked to the deceased authority.
