The Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) has confiscated property worth over 358 million tenge acquired through criminal means into state revenue.
According to the agency's press service, the FMA department for Shymkent has completed a pre-trial investigation against local officials and SCE «Kuatzhyluortalyk-3» on charges of embezzling 1.1 billion tenge of budget funds allocated for the repair of the city's heating networks and power lines.
It is reported that the suspects inflated the estimated cost and payments for work that was never actually carried out.
«Furthermore, the suspect officials, in order to launder the stolen criminal funds, engaged a group of 'cash-out agents' who, for a monetary reward of 7%, provided fictitious documents (invoices, waybills, certificates of completed work, contracts) through 24 shell companies registered to front persons, regarding supposedly concluded deals for the supply of goods and provision of services», the statement reads.
As part of a parallel financial investigation, FMA officers identified property purchased with criminally obtained funds, namely 2 apartments in Shymkent and Astana, 3 private houses in Shymkent, as well as 50 million tenge in bank accounts.
The property has been seized by court order for the purpose of confiscation. The court found seven defendants guilty and sentenced them to prison terms ranging from 2 to 7.5 years.
Recall that in December last year, the akim of Shymkent, Gabit Syzdykbekov, announced that the building of the «Fosfornik» Palace of Culture, previously owned by the convicted oligarch Tokhtar Tuleshov, had been taken onto the city's balance sheet and would be restored.
In June, the head of the Shymkent Anti-Corruption Agency department, Dauren Yergarin, wrote that the city plans to return the «Ice Palace» to state control.
In July, it became known that the Shymkent prosecutor's office had returned property and shares worth 5.9 billion tenge to the state over six months.