Kazakhstani officials seem eager to counter any negative perceptions about the Central Asian nation and maintain its standing as an attractive foreign investment destination, said Yevgeniya Plakhina, an internet freedom campaigner and media observer based in Almaty. "I think the government is trying to take care of its international reputation, instead of solving the internal problems that actually damage its reputation abroad," Plakhina said.

According to the US government's Foreign Agents Registration Act database, Kazakhstan, via its embassy in London, hired BGR Gabara to provide "relevant outreach to government officials, news outlets, and other individuals with the United States, as directed by the Embassy of Kazakhstan in London, United Kingdom." From last April 1 through the end of 2011, BGR Gabara paid BGR Government Affairs, a Delaware registered company, $45,000 per month for "assistance." The monthly rate that the Kazakhstani government paid BGR Gabara cannot be independently determined.

Separately, in 2011 the Kazakh government hired Portland to undertake "strategic and public affairs consulting and media activities" in the United States. At the time of registration, the fee was reportedly still under negotiation.

Web records indicate that Portland and at least one other firm, Media Consulta, appeared to tinker with Wikipedia entries concerning Kazakhstan and its president, Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Wikipedia compiles a list of all changes made to the content of its pages. The IP address or user names of individuals who make edits are recorded, and it is possible to compare "before" and "after" versions of the pages. Users identified only by IP addresses are listed as frequent editors on a number of Kazakhstan-related Wikipedia entries. But those same IP addresses can be traced, using publicly available means, and they appear to be linked with Portland and Media Consulta.

An individual working from an IP address with apparent links to Media Consulta inserted new sections in President Nazarbayev's Wikipedia page, entitled "Dialogue Between Religions" and "Preventing Global Nuclear Threats." In all, the same IP address is linked to four changes - made May 6, 2010 -- to Kazakhstan's Wikpedia page, and four changes to Nazarbayev's page. An additional four changes were made to the Kazakhstan entry on September 30 and October 7 in 2010.

Nazarbayev's page was edited twice on September 30, 2010, and the Kazakhgate entry was edited four times from September 30-October 7, 2010.

Similarly, an IP address with a link to Portland was the source of changes to the Wikipedia entries for BTA Bank and for Mukhtar Ablyazov, the former BTA chairman, who is accused of defrauding the bank of billions of dollars.

BTA bank and Ablyazov are currently locked in a legal battle playing out in a London court. The case is so complex that it could drag on until 2013 and there is no guarantee that BTA will be able to recover any money, despite $172 million being spent in 2011 on "legal proceedings and the overall recovery process." The Kazakhstani government, via its Samruk Kazyna sovereign wealth fund, controls over 80 percent of the Bank's shares.