The victims in the case of former judge of the Medeu District Court of Almaty, Svetlana Zholmanova, who was detained on suspicion of fraud, have given an interview to journalists. According to them, the ex-judge convinced them to take out loans in their own names, promising to pay them off, but failed to keep her promise.
According to ‘Nege.Aqsha’, one of the victims, Anet, learned that Svetlana was allegedly involved in financial transactions — taking money at interest and helping with housing arrangements.
‘In my case, the agreement was this: I take out a loan for a year, she pays it monthly, and at the end of the year she returns the entire amount to me in cash. I took out one million tenge from the bank and gave it to her. She paid 105,000 each month, and after a year she gave me another million from her own income’, he said.
According to him, after the deal was completed, he and his wife again took out a loan for Zholmanova, this time for a larger amount. However, the ex-judge then began to avoid communicating with them and ignored requests to return the money.
‘We tried to get the money back, but she started being rude, and then she completely stopped answering calls. This has been going on for over a year now,’ Anet recounts.
Anet's wife, Gulzhan, also said that she took out a loan in her own name for Svetlana, which she paid off on time, but did not hand over the promised reward.
‘Then, according to Gulzhan, the ex-judge urgently needed money for some reason, and at her request, she took out a product loan through the banking app, sent the link to Zholmanova's secretary, and they cashed it out themselves without Gulzhan's involvement,’ the statement says.
Gulzhan said that for the first few months, Zholmanova paid the loan herself, but later stopped making payments.
‘When Zholmanova started making late payments, Gulzhan was forced to go abroad to earn money; her credit case was handed over to a collection agency, and now she cannot use her bank accounts because they are completely blocked,’ the statement says.
As the victims noted, they entered into the deal not for profit, but because they allegedly do not have enough money and lack their own housing.
‘Now the victims' bank accounts are frozen, they cannot use them, and Anet's driving licence has been suspended, even though his only income is working as a taxi driver,’ said lawyer Radmir Utepov, who represents the victims' interests.
It is noted that before her detention, Svetlana Zholmanova gave an interview on the YouTube channel AZAMAT TV, in which she said she was in a difficult financial situation and had taken on debt.
‘I was forced to take on debts to pay off loans, to pay for my children's education — I am raising them alone — for my elderly mother, and for lawyers. I covered one debt and then took out others,’ she said.
For the record, it was reported that Svetlana Zholmanova was suspected of fraud back in April 2021. At that time, during a search of her office, $10,000 was seized.
Later, by order of the Chairman of the Supreme Court, Svetlana Zholmanova's powers were suspended. In 2023, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev dismissed her.
It is worth noting that two years ago, journalist Mikhail Kozachkov published a video in which the former judge Svetlana Zholmanova is seen discussing the details of passing a bribe with a certain young woman. At the beginning of October this year, information about her detention began to spread online.