APRIL 14 2024 (The Bulletin) — Police in Kyrgyzstan arrested the deputy mayor of Bishkek, Maksatbek Sazykulov, for suspected corruption. He is accused of giving a crime syndicate he is linked to illegal permission to build in the centre of Bishkek. The government is under pressure to stamp out rampant corruption.
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— This story was published in issue 564 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on April 15 2024
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OCT. 27 2021 (The Bulletin) — The authorities in Switzerland more than doubled the amount of cash to 340m francs ($371m) that they will return to Uzbekistan from accounts linked to Gulnara Karimova, the imprisoned daughter of former Uzbek leader Islam Karimov, Swiss media reported. The extra cash was found in a BVI account linked to Karimova. She has been in prison in Uzbekistan since 2014 for various financial crime convictions.
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— This story was published in issue 505 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on Oct. 28 2021
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JULY 15 2021 (The Bulletin) — Police in Kazakhstan arrested four medical staff in the city of Pavlodar for selling fake coronavirus vaccination certificates, media reported (July 15). The arrests follow several at other hospitals in Kazakhstan. The Kazakh government has said that it wants to make vaccination compulsory for people to work, leading to a demand for fake vaccination certificates.
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— This story was published in issue 493 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on July 22 2021
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JUNE 13 2021 (The Bulletin) — Prosecutors in Sweden charged Thomas Bimer, a former executive at engineering firm Bombardier, of corruption linked to a $350m signalling project that the company won in Azerbaijan in 2013. According to press reports, Mr Bimer was part of a scheme to pay a $100m bribe to a mid-ranking official at Azerbaijani Railways for the contract. Mr Bimer and Bombardier deny any wrongdoing.
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— This story was published in issue 48 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on June 16 2021
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MARCH 11 (The Bulletin) — Mark Hauptmann, a German MP from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party, resigned his position after being accused of receiving cash from Azerbaijan to promote its interests. Spiegel magazine said that Mr Hauptmann had used his position as the editor of a regional newspaper to promote Azerbaijan’s agenda in 2015 and 2018. He has denied the accusations. In January, a court in Italy sentenced former MEP Luca Volonte to four years in prison for taking bribes from Azerbaijan.
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— This story was published in issue 475 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 15 2021
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MARCH 10 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s state railway company released a video that claimed that a luxury retreat built in hills outside Tashkent is for its employees and not for Uzbek Pres. Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The video is a response to a report released by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty which said that the complex had been built as a palace for Mr Mirziyoyev and that Uzbek Railways have been used to shield its real use.
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— This story was published in issue 475 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin, on March 15 2021
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FEB. 4 2021 (The Bulletin) — Police in Kyrgyzstan arrested Yevgeny Krazhan, the former head of Sky Mobile telecoms, which trades under the Beeline brand, for alleged corruption. The Beeline brand belongs to New York-listed Veon. Corruption is rife in Kyrgyzstan and media reported that the arrest of Mr Krazhan, a Ukrainian, is linked to an investigation into corruption by officials in the state communications agency.
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— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin
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FEB. 4 2021 (The Bulletin) — A court in Stockholm upheld the acquittal of three former executives of telecoms company TeliaSonera, now called Telia, who had been charged with paying bribes to Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of former Uzbek leader Islam Karimov. The three men, including former TeliaSonera CEO Lars Nyberg, went on trial in 2018 and were acquitted in 2019 because it could not be proved that Ms Karimova held any official position in the Uzbek telecoms sector. Ms Karimova has been under house arrest or in prison in Tashkent since 2014. In 2017, Telia paid more than $1b in fines for the bribes, the largest ever corporate corruption fine.
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— This story was first published in issue 471 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin
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DEC. 25 2020 (The Bulletin) — Uzbekistan’s Supreme Court began the trial for manslaughter through negligence of eight men who built and designed a dam in the north of the country that burst in 2020, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, forcing 70,000 people to flee their homes and killing six people. The case is being closely watched in Uzbekistan. Officials said that they suspected that corruption was partly to blame for the failure of the dam, which was finished in 2017.
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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin
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BISHKEK/DEC. 23 2020 (The Bulletin) — Kyrgyzstan’s parliament voted into law an amnesty for people who enriched themselves through corruption and theft in exchange for giving some of their assets to the state.
Supporters of the government’s amnesty said that it will boost resources and also cut the size of the shadow economy. Its detractors, though, said that the main aim was to provide cover for Raimbek Matraimov, the former deputy head of Kyrgyzstan’s customs service, who is accused of corruption and stealing hundreds of millions of dollars.
Mr Matraimov, whose assets have been frozen in the United States, has, it has been reported, already agreed to pay back 2b som ($25m).
Analysts have said that the Kyrgyz elite may be so eager to give protection to Mr Matraimov because he could easily implicate others.
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— This story was first published in issue 467 of the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin
— Copyright the Central Asia & South Caucasus Bulletin 2021