The Department of the Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) in the Kyzylorda region has completed an investigation into the management of LLP «SPK Kyzylorda Balyk». The company's management, using fake documents about the origin of fish products, organised the export of pikeperch fillets to the European Union.
According to the agency's press service, in 2022, company officials provided deliberately false information to customs authorities and exported more than 75 tonnes of pikeperch fillets with a total value of 254 million tenge.
To give the origin of the products a legal appearance, the company prepared documents regarding the purchase of fish from affiliated farms, which did not have the conditions for breeding or farming fish.
"The reservoirs on the farm's territory were completely dry, and the trucks specified in the documentation did not actually carry out transport and were not equipped with the refrigeration equipment necessary for transporting chilled fish," the statement reads.
The court found the company's founder, A. Yerkhatov, and director, L. Kaiypnazarova, guilty and sentenced them to a restriction of liberty for a term of 2 years.
A criminal income in the amount of 254 million tenge was recovered in favour of the state. The verdict has not yet entered into legal force.
It is worth recalling that in August last year, a verdict was handed down in the court of Konayev, Almaty region, in a case involving the smuggling of fish products on an especially large scale.
It was reported that the head of the company, from October 2021 to September 2022, purchased fish from a poacher, which he then exported to EU countries.