FBRK.KZ

In Turkestan, a guilty verdict has been handed down in a case involving the embezzlement of budget funds allocated for subsidising the wages of employed citizens.

Residents of Shymkent are reporting a sharp deterioration in air quality and describing the situation as an "environmental catastrophe".

In November, in the Aktobe region, law enforcement officers exposed the activities of a group of individuals who were involved in the theft and transportation of primary oil refining products using forged documents.

The Almaty City Court on 25 November discontinued proceedings in the administrative case against journalist Mikhail Kozachkov, whom Majilis deputy Bolatbek Nazhmetdinuly (Aliyev) had attempted to hold liable for libel. The court noted the absence of the elements of an offence.

Fraudsters obtained smartphones worth 7.7 million tenge in the name of an Astana-based micro-enterprise using forged documents. The business owner has spent over a year trying to prove his innocence; his accounts have been frozen, and the police allegedly refuse to open a criminal case, despite a forensic examination confirming the signatures were forged and testimony from the individual who was paid to collect the mobile devices using someone else's documents.