One Family’s ‘Golden Age’: President’s Relative Controls Turkmenistan’s Only Mobile Operator

For most individuals in Turkmenistan, Shyhmyrat Shaharliyev is an unknown determine. His title barely seems on-line, he eschews social media, and he appears by no means to have made any public appearances.

However Shaharliyev has a larger affect on the day-to-day lives of atypical Turkmens than most understand. He’s the secretive common director of Altyn Asyr (“Golden Age”), the one cellular operator in Turkmenistan, the place telecommunications are intently monitored and censored. He’s additionally married to the niece of longtime dictator Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, who ceded the presidency to his son Serdar earlier this month.

Turkmen residents commonly complain concerning the sluggish and overpriced telecom providers offered by Altyn Asyr, which operates beneath the model title TM Cell. Even Berdimuhamedov has criticized its service and accused its former managers of incompetence.

However a brand new investigation by OCCRP, Turkmen.Information, and Gundogar.org signifies that the poor service isn’t the results of a scarcity of funding. In 2011 and 2012, Berdimuhamedov approved spending over $170 million to overtake the corporate’s communications infrastructure.

After the funding was permitted, Berdimuhamedov signed one other decree, reworking the state-owned enterprise right into a closed joint-stock firm that retains its shareholders secret.

In 2017, the federal government additionally expelled the corporate’s solely competitor, Russian telecom big MTS, making Altyn Asyr a monopoly.

Then, in 2019, Shaharliyev turned the corporate’s common director — and since Altyn Asyr was now ruled by a board, no official decree was obligatory. After he took workplace, the president’s public criticism of the corporate and its providers ceased.

The shortage of transparency about Altyn Asyr’s possession, the choice to secretly appoint Shaharliyev to steer it, and the expulsion of MTS all counsel that Turkmenistan’s telecom infrastructure is being concentrated within the palms of the primary household. In the meantime, the movement of state {dollars} into Altyn Asyr hasn’t stopped.

Since Shaharliyev avoids the limelight, little is understood about his earnings, life-style, and private habits. However there are indications that the Shaharliyevs benefit from the luxuries obtainable to different members of Berdimuhamedov’s household: Shaharliyev’s son has proven off his costly watches on social media, and a number of other eating places and a nightclub in Turkmenistan are additionally linked to the household.

Reporters have been unable to achieve Shyhmyrat Shaharliyev for remark.

From Modesty to Modernization

Altyn Asyr was based in 2004 by official decree of President Berdimuhamedov’s predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov.

In his 15 years in command of Turkmenistan, Niyazov established an all-encompassing cult of persona and even gained worldwide fame for his megalomaniacal flights of fancy: renaming the month of January after himself and April after his mom, penning his personal guide of philosophy that every one Turkmen college students have been made to review, and erecting a golden statue of himself that rotated to at all times face the solar.

Compared to these ventures, Altyn Asyr was comparatively modest. The corporate was based as a small nationwide telecom operator, with a capability of simply 50,000 distinctive numbers in a rustic of 4.7 million individuals.

From the start, Altyn Asyr had issues. As a state firm, it was not extremely conscious of the market and protection was poor exterior Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat. The corporate struggled to maintain up with its most important competitor, a non-public operator referred to as Barash Communications Applied sciences Inc.

In 2005, the proprietor of BCTI offered the corporate to MTS, a Moscow-based telecom heavyweight with operations throughout the area. Beneath its new model, it remained the most well-liked choice in Turkmenistan.

Quickly after MTS entered Turkmenistan by this acquisition, the Turkmen authorities started to pour cash into modernizing Altyn Asyr. Between 2007 and 2012, Berdimuhamedov approved 11 contracts to buy SIM playing cards for the corporate, modernize its tools, and even construct it a brand-new workplace constructing. In complete, the contracts have been value over $188 million.

The overwhelming majority of that spending — over $170 million — was approved in only one yr, between October 2011 and October 2012. A month later, Berdimuhamedov abruptly remodeled Altyn Asyr from a department of a state enterprise right into a closed joint-stock firm, describing the transfer as a step in direction of integrating the corporate into the free market.

However an evaluation by BMI Analysis, a enterprise analysis agency, means that the corporate doubtless remained largely in state palms. Since its shareholders should not disclosed, the scale of the federal government’s stake is unknown, as is the scale of any share acquired by anybody else.

Whereas the Turkmen authorities was investing in Altyn Asyr, it was additionally going after its extra profitable competitor, MTS.

By 2010, that firm’s consumer base had grown to 2.4 million — over half the nation’s inhabitants. However that very same yr, Turkmenistan’s Ministry of Communications lower its customers off from cellphone strains and the web, claiming that its five-year contract had expired.

The corporate initiated authorized proceedings in opposition to the Turkmen authorities and managed to achieve an settlement with Berdimuhamedov that allowed it to return to the nation in 2012, with its license prolonged till July 2018.

However MTS didn’t make it that lengthy. In September 2017, nearly a yr earlier than the license was set to run out, the Turkmen authorities broke the settlement with out rationalization and compelled the corporate to close down its operations within the nation. That made Altyn Asyr the one cellular operator remaining in Turkmenistan.

In the meantime, the Turkmen authorities has continued to put money into Altyn Asyr. In November 2021, pro-government media reported that Turkmenistan had allowed its nationwide communications company to buy tools, software program, licenses, and technical help for Altyn Asyr from worldwide telecommunications corporations like Huawei and Nokia. The report didn’t state how a lot cash can be spent on the funding.

Secret Director

Altyn Asyr’s transformation right into a closed joint-stock firm at Berdimuhamedov’s behest would show crucial in hiding the truth that a member of his household managed the corporate. As a result of Altyn Asyr was now ruled by a board, the choice to nominate Shyhmyrat Shaharliyev as its director was not public — like the person himself.

Earlier than taking the helm of the cellular operator, Shaharliyev’s title appeared on-line solely as soon as. In October 2016, as Turkmenistan marked the twenty fifth anniversary of its independence, state media printed a decree itemizing him as considered one of a number of hundred individuals given commemorative medals by Berdimuhamedov for his or her contributions to the nation’s improvement. The decree described Shaharliyev as the pinnacle of the fabric provide division of Turkmentelecom, a state firm chargeable for all landline cellphone, radio communication, and most residence web entry.

However someday between the 2016 award ceremony and the top of 2019, Shaharliyev turned director of Altyn Asyr. A supply within the firm informed OCCRP and companions that he was appointed in 2019.

In contrast to his predecessor, Shaharliyev has by no means represented Altyn Asyr publicly, leaving the job to his deputy, Vitaliy Patushenko, who represents the corporate at conferences and offers feedback to state media on its behalf.

Neither Altyn Asyr nor any state media shops have ever printed Shaharliyev’s {photograph}. Initially, reporters have been solely capable of finding one picture on-line that even hinted at a likeness of the secretive telecom director. It was a New Yr’s household portrait printed privately as an Instagram story by Shaharliyev’s daughter and reposted publicly by his son — however along with his mother and father’ faces coated with pink coronary heart emojis to hide their identities.

Such excessive secrecy could seem pointless and even counterproductive for the director of a nationwide telecom firm that doubtless counts most Turkmens as its purchasers. However Shaharliyev isn’t any atypical CEO.

His spouse, Yazgul Shaharliyeva, is the daughter of Berdimuhamedov’s sister Durdynabat and her husband, Annanazar Rejepov.

The Rejepov household is understood for its broad enterprise pursuits in Turkmenistan and past. On the identical day Shaharliyev acquired his commemorative medal, Annanazar acquired one as effectively. He was listed within the state decree as “coordinator of Nusay Yollary,” considered one of a number of native corporations establishing a brand new expressway between Ashgabat and the japanese metropolis of Turkmenabat. The price of the mission is $2.3 billion.

OCCRP, Turkmen.Information, and Gundogar.org have beforehand reported that Berdimuhamedov granted Annanazar’s son Hajymyrat Rejepov the best to import meals to Turkmenistan at a time when the nation confronted a scarcity of inexpensive groceries. A subsequent investigation discovered that each Hajymyrat and his brother Shamyrat benefitted from privileged entry to their nation’s mineral wealth and have been concerned within the export of petrochemical merchandise for a substantial revenue.

OCCRP and companions additionally discovered that Hajymyrat Rejepov had constructed an opulent mansion for his household in Gazha, an costly improvement within the heart of Ashgabat, and that each brothers owned a number of residences in Dubai.

Secret Wealth

Hajymyrat and Shamyrat Rejepov are recognizable figures in Turkmenistan, broadly recognized to be “yegenler” — in Turkmen, “nephews” of the president — who’ve printed pictures of their jet-setting life-style on social media.

Against this, Shaharliyev’s secrecy means that he’s neither well known because the director of Altyn Asyr, nor as a member of the primary household. However there are indicators that he too enjoys the luxurious life-style that the Rejepovs have made well-known.

Shaharliyev’s son has printed photographs on his non-public Instagram account of himself sporting costly watches, driving elite vehicles, and using on horseback. OCCRP and companions have been in a position to match his watches with fashions produced by luxurious manufacturers Rolex, Hublot, and Franck Muller. The estimated mixed worth of those fashions can be round $125,000. The 2 vehicles pictured on the son’s Instagram are a BMW and a Toyota Land Сruiser.

Reporters heard from sources inside Turkmenistan that Shaharliyev owns a number of eating places, espresso outlets, and a nightclub within the nation. Turkmenistan doesn’t publish firm registration paperwork, however reporters discovered corroborating proof that Shaharliyev owns two of those eating places in a leaked database of Altyn Asyr cellphone numbers.

A cellphone quantity listed within the database as belonging to Shaharliyev additionally serves because the official variety of Kopetdag Challenge, a model that features an upscale restaurant, pizzeria, beer pub, and nightclub. Earlier variations of the phonebook present that this quantity has belonged to Shaharliyev since at the very least 2015.

OCCRP and companions referred to as the primary cellphone quantity listed on Kopetdag’s Instagram profile and requested whether or not it was Shyhmyrat Shaharliyev’s restaurant. The lady who answered the cellphone mentioned it was.

Shaharliyev additionally doubtless has an possession stake in Koshi Shashlyk, a well-liked restaurant recognized for kebab supply. One of many numbers listed on-line for the restaurant belongs to Shaharliyev, in response to the leaked phonebook. One other two of the restaurant’s numbers belong to his brother Shyhberdi Shaharliyev.