What do two lavish new condo towers coming to the Upper West Side and Midtown have in common? Connections to dubious Kazakh cash.
Applaud or loathe them , these buildings are the poster children for how dirty money from far-off nations is reshaping NYC neighborhoods.
Both 50 W. 66th St. and 570 Fifth Ave. were financially backed by the mysterious private equity firm Meridian Capital. A new über-luxury tower coming to 50 W. 66th St. is one of several new residential buildings funded via cash connected to the Kazakh elite.Founded in 2002 by Kazakhstan’s former oil and gas minister Sauat Mynbayev, Kazakh billionaire Askar Alshinbayev and top execs of Kazkommertsbank, Kazakhstan’s largest private bank, Meridian“They’re just good businessmen who made good investments.
The source pointed to other Meridian deals — like a Russian dairy farm it sold to Danone, the French company, and a Saint Petersburg shopping mall it sold to Morgan Stanley for $1.1 billion. “Meridian couldn’t do deals like that if it was dirty,” they said. “Real estate is one of the cleanest industries in the world. If you want to launder money, get diamonds or art that you can transport. You can’t carry a building on your back.”Today, Kazakhstan is on fire thanks to the anti-corruption protests that started last week over gas prices.
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