The head of a travel agency has been convicted in Karaganda. She was accused of embezzling more than 24 million tenge.
According to the press service of the Karaganda courts, between December 2022 and August 2023, she defrauded 21 clients.
"Abusing their trust, and having concluded contracts with them for tourist services, she sold them tours to countries near and far abroad, deliberately having no intention of fulfilling her obligations. Under the contracts concluded with the victims, the director of the Limited Liability Partnership embezzled more than 24 million tenge", the report says.
For example, a resident of Astana, deciding to fly to Turkey on holiday with his family, paid for tours for 5 people via invoice to the Limited Liability Partnership in the amount of 2.5 million tenge.
However, he later found out that flights from the capital's airport were not registered for his family, and hotels in Turkey had not been booked.
He then travelled to Karaganda, where the defendant told him about alleged problems and promised to return the money, but only returned 380,000 tenge.
"Despite the approved mediation agreement to recover 2.2 million tenge from the Limited Liability Partnership in his favour, he insists on the full satisfaction of the civil claim brought against her", the report says.
The defendant fully acknowledged the civil claims brought against her, but did not admit her guilt and requested to be acquitted.
In the end, the Kazybekbi District Court of Karaganda found the defendant guilty and sentenced her to 4 years and 6 months' imprisonment.
In addition, she was banned from providing services in the tourism sector for 3 years. At the same time, the court granted the civil claims of the victims.
For context, last July in Atyrau, the head of the travel agency "INFINITY TRAVEL M" was sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment. She was accused of embezzling 30.7 million tenge from 31 victims.