Tevfik Arif

Tevfik Arif
Born	Tofic Arifov May 1953 Cambul, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic
Residence	Turkey Port Washington, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Real estate developer, investor
Organization	Bayrock Group

Tevfik Arif (born May 1953) is a Kazakh real estate developer and investor. He is the founder of the Bayrock Group.

Tevfik Arif was born Tofic Arifov in Cambul in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic in May 1953. He received an international relations degree from a Moscow university. Prior to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Arif worked for the USSR's Ministry of Commerce and Trade for 17 years. He served as the deputy director of its Department of Hotel Management. Arif resigned from the ministry in 1991 and founded Speciality Chemicals Trading Company, an export-import business trading in rare metals, chrome, and raw materials. He then worked as an "agent on the ground" in Kazakhstan for Trans World Group, a natural resources company run by David and Simon Reuben.

Arif moved to Turkey in 1993. He had owned the Turkish jewellery business Alset Dis Ticaret since 1979. In 1999, Arif partnered with the Rixos hotel chain to open the Labada luxury hotel in Antalya, Turkey.

Following the independence of Kazakhstan, Arif and his brother secured ownership of ACCP, a chromium plant in Aktobe that had headquarters in the British Virgin Islands. The brothers developed ties to the Kazakh Trio — Alexander Mashkevitch, Patokh Chodiev, and Alijan Ibragimov. They later established offshore real estate companies to fund high-end developments in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey.

In 2001, Arif moved some of his businesses to the United States and founded the Bayrock Group, a real estate development company. He began developing property in Brooklyn, first redeveloping Loehmann's Seaport Plaza, a waterfront shopping center in Sheepshead Bay. Arif was originally the sole employee of Bayrock, later hiring Felix Sater as managing director.

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