Businessman Tied to Kazakhstan Buys Ex-Prison Real Estate in the Netherlands
An investigation shows that Arvind Tiku possibly bought a housing project in Amsterdam with Kazakh oil money
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Indian billionaire Arvind Tiku, who earned a fortune through his investments in Kazakhstan’s oil projects, bought a former prison in Amsterdam earmarked for a housing development, Dutch investigative outlet Follow the Money reported on September 14.
Tiku’s company, AT Capital, is based in Singapore and owns a number of companies in various jurisdictions, including AT Holdings Europe in the Netherlands, which (through its subsidiary AT Capital Europe) bought a 55% stake in the Bijlmerbajes prison, one year after it shut down and was selected as a prospective real estate project of 1,350 new homes.
CEO Josephine Feilzer acknowledged in an interview that “AT Capital had a link with the Netherlands as an investment hub from way back, before it started in real estate.”
In fact, Tiku’s AT Capital had become a shareholder of a company established by giant oil trader Vitol in Rotterdam (Ingma Holding BV) in 2003. The company was established “to invest in Kazakhstan”.
At its peak, Vitol traded a fifth of Kazakhstan's total oil exports annually, largely through Ingma Holding, a joint venture with Tiku. Between 2009-2019, it made a profit of more than a billion euros. As a major shareholder, Tiku received hundreds of millions of euros in dividends (in 2019 alone, more than 60 million euros).
“With that capital in its pocket, AT Capital has been building a substantial portfolio of properties throughout the Netherlands for almost a decade,” according to Follow the Money.
In Court
Based on public documents, court documents, and a fraud investigation by De Nederlandsche Bank (DNB), Follow the Money recently revealed in a separate report that Tiku’s joint venture with Vitol is currently under criminal investigation for alleged bribery. Ingma Holding had been investigated already in Switzerland in 2010 for alleged money laundering, but the prosecutors shut down that investigation in 2013.
The Swiss investigation revealed the existence of a trust administered by Credit Suisse since 2006 that benefited companies owned by both Tiku and Timur Kulibayev, the son-in-law of former President Nursultan Nazarbayev and one of Kazakhstan’s richest.
Tiku and Kulibayev formally worked together since 2006, co-owning large companies such as Nostrum Oil & Gas and KazStroyService, active in Kazakhstan’s rampant oil sector.
In a 2021 interview with the Swiss newspaper NZZ, Tiku said he had opportunities in Kazakhstan that others did not have, but never did anything illegal.
“Do I know Kulibayev? Of course. Have I done business with him? Yes. Do I still do business with him? No. Why not? Because the world has changed, compliance has changed with regard to politically exposed persons,” Tiku said.
In 2021, Tiku convinced a Swiss court that a publication by Public Eye, a human rights watchdog, misled the readers into believing he was a front for Kulibayev. The story was subsequently amended to reflect the sentence. In July 2024, Kulibayev’s lawyers told media outlet Swissinfo, which reported on Public Eye’s revelations, that their 2018 report incorrectly depicted Kulibayev as the indirect beneficiary of Ingma Holding.
In 2014, the Dutch branch of AT Capital bought Tiku’s shares in Ingma Holding, effectively moving assets from his oil business into AT Capital’s real estate ventures.
Due Diligence
In August, Follow the Money revealed in yet another story that Vitol is suspected of bribery in Kazakhstan, according to sources with direct knowledge of the investigation.
Follow the Money discovered that the investigation follows a fraud investigation into the company in 2019 by the Dutch Central Bank (DNB). At the time, DNB had found “illogical” payments in the accounts of a controversial joint venture to the Swiss bank accounts of a consultant who allegedly works for the oil trader in Kazakhstan.
According to inside sources, this joint venture is part of the Dutch investigation.
The sale of the former prison was subject to a due diligence test through the Public Administration Integrity Assessment Law (shortened as Bibob in Dutch), which found no reason to block the deal with Tiku’s AT Capital. It is unclear, however, whether the Dutch Public Prosecution Service was already investigating the joint venture in which Tiku owned a stake when the Bibob test was made on the real estate investment.
Tiku had sold his stake in Ingma Holding in 2020 to Vitol, which shut down the company the following year. The company is now being investigated for alleged bribery.
The Amsterdam city government has not yet said whether it will investigate or review the deal involving the sale of the former Bijlmerbajes prison.
In a comment to Follow the Money, AT Capital said the money used to finance the Bijlmerbajes project came from its Singaporean parent company AT Holdings Pte Ltd. It also said AT Holdings had significant funds at the time of the deal from sources unrelated to the Vitol joint venture Ingma Holdings and/or Kazakhstan.
This article was edited and adapted from a piece by Lukas Kotkamp, Follow The Money.
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