Forbes Kazakhstan interviewed an expert on countering money laundering.

In February 2021, the American magazine Forbes published the Next 1000 rating. This list includes self-funded stores and startups from all over the United States with a preliminary income of less than $ 10 million. Simply put, these are the most successful and promising small business entities in the country. A 29-year-old Kazakh, Elisar Nurmagambetov, was also featured in the rating. Together with 67-year-old American businessman Amir Sunderji, he created Consilienz, a software system that detects financial crimes such as money laundering and fraud, as well as human trafficking.

As Elisar notes, it is extremely difficult to get into the US security industry even for an American specialist, let alone a young Kazakh. Only people with extensive experience, in intelligence services, start a business in this field. Nevertheless, today the country's financial, law enforcement and government organizations use the Consilienz system to detect suspicious transactions. The product became especially popular during the "helicopter" anti-crisis monetary strategy in the United States during the pandemic.

In 2021, Elisar Nurmagambetov was featured in the 30 Under 30 by Forbes Kazakhstan.

In a new interview on our YouTube channel, the young businessman talks about how money laundering works in the USA and Kazakhstan. Elisar says that usually it is done by an army of lawyers and accountants. They often use offshore companies that are registered in advance and just "sit on the shelf" waiting for a client.

"A very simple task is to track people who are already connected with the criminal world. It is more difficult to detect money laundering in transactions of a company with clear record operating legally. And this is exactly what our software does - it looks for a connection between clean companies and criminals," he details.

The methods to siphon money out from Kazakhstan are quite simple, even primitive, says Elisar. "These are standard frauds through offshore companies, shell companies, through dubious transactions when certain equipment is bought at inflated prices," he states. However, it is difficult to return the money back to the country.

"All the siphoned money is under different jurisdictions. Our technology can be applied here. We are able to find the connection between companies from different countries and Kazakhstan, and collect evidence. However, this is a lot of work. We would need to go through endless layers of companies and affiliated persons," he says.

Elisar says that the openness of Kazakhstan and cooperation with other countries can facilitate the process.

Watch the full interview with Elisar on our YouTube channel.