Hunter and Joe Biden with Kazakhstan oligarch Kenes Rakishev (far left).
Between 2012-14, Hunter worked as a sort of go-between for Rakishev.
Rakishev is married to the daughter of a former mayor of the country's capital city (recently re-named 'Nursultan,' after the elderly despot), who later served as its Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. All in all it was an intriguing nexus.
Fast forward to 2012 and Rakishev had just joined Forbes magazine's top-15 list of Kazakhstan's 'most influential' tycoons, with estimated assets of some $332 million. Like many an oligarch in possession of a huge fortune, Rakishev was now looking for a safe place to park it, so had come to America in search of new places to invest his hard-earned roubles.
Sadly, things hadn't gone entirely smoothly. For in the highly-regulated world of Western capitalism, Rakishev discovered that blue-chip investment partners were often reluctant to take his cash.
To blame? The fact that no one was entirely sure where his wealth actually came from.
For example, the leaked emails obtained by the Mail show that the International Finance Corporation, a highly respectable sister organisation of the World Bank, held preliminary talks with Rakishev about a business collaboration, before deciding to pull out.
I can reveal that the IFC then politely informed the oligarch that it 'cannot invest with him' because its 'very deep due diligence processes' had established that he had some 'connections' involving the 'president's family' that 'are a liability to us.' Seemingly outraged, Rakishev responded that he would ensure that the organisation 'never works in Kazakhstan with anyone.'
The United States Department of Justice then took an interest in Rakishev. It soon dragged him into an investigation of potential breaches the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act related to 'an investment in the oil and gas industry in Kazakhstan'.
Though Rakishev immediately denied all wrongdoing, and no charges were ever filed, in September 2013 he decided to hire a notoriously expensive U.S. law firm called Greenberg Traurig to deal with incoming fire related to the probe......two attorneys who led a team working the Kazakh's case, John Pappalardo and Stanford Saunders, charged him in the region of $1,000 and $700 per hour respectively.