Nurali Aliyev, a former deputy mayor of Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, and son of President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s eldest daughter Dariga, is revealed to have owned offshore companies involved in selling yachts and raw materials, according to the leak of documents from law firm Mossack Fonseca dubbed as the Panama Papers.

“Aliyev, who was worth an estimated $200mn in 2012 and is also chairman of a telecommunications company, is rumoured to be a potential successor to his grandfather as president of the oil- and gas-rich nation,” the leaks say. “In June 2008 Aliyev became a shareholder of Baltimore Alliance Inc. Based in the British Virgin Islands, the company was inactivated in 2014. The main activity of Baltimore was to own, purchase and sell yachts. In 2008 the company bought a 77-foot yacht, the Nomad, registered in the BVI by Mossack Fonseca,” the leaks say.

“In February 2009, Aliyev was replaced as one of the shareholders of Baltimore by a BVI company called Greatex Trade & Invest Corp. Greatex ceased being a shareholder of Baltimore in July 2011. According to a 2015 report by Global Witness, Greatex controlled companies in the United Kingdom that owned property in London. From 2007 to 2008, Nurali Aliyev was also administrator president of Greatex (Suisse) SA, a Swiss company that traded in raw materials. As of December 2015, Nurali Aliyev also owned Alba International Holdings Ltd., founded in the BVI in September 2014, which he used to hold a bank account in Cyprus.”

Nurali Aliyev, appointed deputy mayor of Astana in December 2014, resigned from his post in March in order to “do my favourite thing in the business environment”. No underlying reasons for the resignation were given.

According to Forbes Kazakhstan, Nurali Aliyev’s was Kazakhstan’s 32nd richest man with $200mn in assets in the media, telecom and sugar sectors. His mother Dariga Nazarbayeva was No 13 on the rich list with $595mn in 2013.