The brother of Kazakhstan’s president says his ex-wife and her son made him look like a regular Borat — stealing a $20 million apartment at The Plaza right out from under him.
In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Bolat Nazarbayev says his ex, Maira Nazarbayeva, and her son Daniyar conspired to surreptitously “sell” the pricey pad to the son for free.
The pair carried out their plan with “a fraudulently obtained and legally defective power of attorney,” says the suit, which seeks the return of the $20 million apartment, plus the cash for two $2 million apartments that Daniyar bought on Wall Street with his stepfather’s money.
Nazarbayev says he discovered the swindle late last year, after getting divorced from Maira, who he “purportedly married” in July of 2001.
The suit calls the marriage into question because, Nazarbayev said, she apparently wasn’t who he thought she was. He said he recently discovered that she has had several aliases and is “an international fugitive currently wanted by Interpol.”
It wasn’t until after they divorced, the suit says, that Nazarbayev discovered that she “had been declared by Kazakhstani authorities to be wanted for various crimes, including kidnapping, use of threats of physical harm to extract funds from a business associate, and using criminal threats to force another person to transfer real property to the name of a family associate.”
The suit says she and her son hatched their scheme in 2008, when Nazarbayev was looking to buy an apartment in New York. He settled on an 18th floor condo in The Plaza, and says that his wife and stepson convinced him to give them power of attorney to consummate the deal.
“Daniyar and Maira represented to Bolat that the only legal effect of that document was to authorize registration of the Plaza apartment in Bolat’s name without need for Bolat personally to travel to the United States, and to enable payment of expenses” such as utility and maintenance, the suit says. Since he and Maira were “ostensibly married,” he had “no reason to believe” the mother and son were “scheming to exploit Bolat’s trust and confidence.”
The suit says Daniyar was supposed to put the apartment solely in his stepdad’s name, but added his mom’s name to the property as well. About eight months later he used the power of attorney to sell the apartment to himself “for no consideration,” the suit says.
The suit says he should never have been able to pull the deal off, because the power of attorney specifically barred any family member from getting more than $12,000 in a year.
The alegedly duped dad says he also later learned that Daniyar had used $4 million of his money to buy two apartments at 55 Wall Street.
The suit seeks the return of the Plaza apartment, plus money damages.
Daniyar, who is reportedly engaged to the daughter of Malaysia’s prime minister, and Maira could not be reached last night.