An investigation is underway in the West Kazakhstan Region into a group of individuals who organised illegal business activities by issuing microloans to residents of Uralsk without a licence.
According to the press service of the Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA), over five years the suspects, operating through a network of branches under the "Fast Money" brand, entered into loan agreements with citizens totalling more than 1.5 billion tenge.
At the same time, interest on the loans was disguised as separate agreements for "consulting services" with an affiliated limited liability partnership registered in the name of a relative of one of the suspects.
It has become known that borrowers were forced to pay 1.5% per day under the guise of such services, whereas the maximum permissible interest rate is 0.3%.
As a result, over 47,000 loans were issued at inflated interest rates. According to preliminary data, the amount of illegal income amounted to 917 million tenge.
By court order, a commercial industrial premises and an apartment belonging to the suspects have been seized. The investigation is ongoing.
It is worth recalling that earlier it was reported that the FMA department for the Kostanay Region is conducting a pre-trial investigation into illegal microfinance activities that had been carried out since 2020. The total amount of loans issued exceeded 100 million tenge.