Kazakhgate: The Incredible Story of James Giffen

In March 2003, James Giffen is arrested at JFK International Airport for violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. In the United States, nobody seems to know the middleman, but he reveals to be the most influential foreigner in Kazakhstan. This is the story of how James Henry Giffen came to be the right arm of the former authoritarian president Nursultan Nazarbayev and how its work fell at the center of an international corruption scandal known as Kazakhgate.

Timestamps
00:00 The arrest of James Giffen
01:55 From middleman to Nazarbayev’s pupil
02:16 Who is James Giffen
03:35 When Chevron obtained the rights on the Tengiz oilfield
04:13 The rival: John Deuss
04:31 Investing in Kazakhstan means oil
05:22 A luxurious life
08:03 The investigation
08:46 Hidden bribes
10:05 Trial to a CIA agent?
11:02 The sentence

#understandingpolitics #kazakhgate #gianmarcomoise

References

The article on Ara Oztemel can be found here:
https://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/09/business/ara-oztemel-71-businessman-cultivated-us-soviet-trade.html

Was Giffen a CIA agent? Two articles on the topic by Steve LeVine:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/11/19/was-james-giffen-telling-the-truth/
https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/06/04/the-giffen-strategy-waiting-out-the-cia-hoping-prosecutors-lose-heart-or-interest/

The Oil deal of the century signed in Kazakhstan:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1992/05/19/chevron-kazakhstan-sign-20-billion-oil-agreement/45021b9f-af82-4162-836f-6e8c461bbb5d/

The statistics on oil in Kazakhstan are by Worldometers: https://www.worldometers.info/oil/kazakhstan-oil/#:~:text=Oil%20Reserves%20in%20Kazakhstan&text=Kazakhstan%20holds%2030%2C000%2C000%2C000%20barrels%20of,252.9%20times%20its%20annual%20consumption.

Who is John Deuss, as deepened by The Scoop:
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0711/S00443/caspian-tales-john-deuss-oil-spooks-cohibas.htm

The international arbitration of Biedermann vs Kazakhstan:
https://www.italaw.com/cases/149

The article shown in the video, highlighting the main phases of the case:
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/05/business/yourmoney/05giffen.html

More academic books and articles covering the case:

Biegelman, Martin T., and Daniel R. Biegelman. 2010. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Compliance Guidebook. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Compliance Guidebook. John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118268292.

LeVine, Steve. 2007. The Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea. Random House.

Peck, Anne E. 2004. Economic Development in Kazakhstan: The Role of Large Enterprises and Foreign Investment. Economic Development in Kazakhstan: The Role of Large Enterprises and Foreign Investment. RoutledgeCurzon. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203563427.

Yeager, Matthew G. 2012. “The CIA Made Me Do It: Understanding the Political Economy of Corruption in Kazakhstan.” Crime, Law and Social Change 57 (4): 441–57. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10611-011-9341-2.

Acknowledgments
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Видео Kazakhgate: The Incredible Story of James Giffen канала Understanding Politics