The head of the Western Regional Branch of the RSE "Production Association "Okhotzooprom" Arman Kuzhakhmetov was detained while receiving 5 million tenge. According to a source, he demanded the money from an entrepreneur for issuing a permit to cull saigas.
WHAT IS KNOWN
As reported by "Uralskaya Nedelya", Kuzhakhmetov was detained on 11 September by officers of the department of the National Security Committee for the West Kazakhstan Region (KNB for WKR). This was reported to the publication by member of the public council of the WKR Bauyrzhan Zaki.
According to him, the head of the branch demanded 5 million tenge from an entrepreneur for issuing a permit to cull saigas. Kuzhakhmetov, as the source claims, was detained red-handed while receiving the money.
WHAT STRUCTURE KUZHAKHMETOV HEADED
48-year-old Arman Kuzhakhmetov has headed the Western Regional Branch of the RSE "Production Association "Okhotzooprom" since 2020. The enterprise is subordinate to the Committee for Forestry and Wildlife of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources.
Thus, the detention took place within a structure directly involved in measures to regulate the saiga population. A separate area of the structure's work relates to animal derivatives — in particular, to horns obtained as a result of such measures.
CONTEXT
In 2023–2024, Kazakhstan began regulating the saiga population. Since October 2023, "Okhotzooprom" removed 43,503 animals, but what happened to them afterwards largely remained outside publicly available information. As the FBRK found out, out of 1,132 carcasses delivered at the time to one of the enterprises, 734 were sent for canned food production, while 398 were deemed unfit and disposed of. At the same time, complete and transparent information about the fate of all 43,500 culled saigas was never provided.
Typically, during the regulation of the saiga population, horns are cut off, marked and transferred for storage. Several years ago, the Ministry of Ecology stated that each horn receives an individual number, and the derivatives themselves are stored in specially equipped premises with alarms and security.
However, against this backdrop, large batches of horns continued to appear in illegal circulation. Thus, 600 horns were found in a resident of the Atyrau Region, and another 1,382 horns were seized from three citizens in the Zhetysu Region.
But if each horn really was accounted for, marked and kept under guard, then where did thousands of horns end up in illegal circulation? Does this not mean that some of the derivatives leaked directly from the storage system?
It is especially difficult to ignore this question against the backdrop of reports of corruption at the enterprise that regulates the saiga population.
That is precisely why what is needed here is not only departmental but also independent public oversight — from the moment of culling to the storage and further use of each horn. Access to such information, however, remains limited: the biological justification for the culling itself is still being carefully concealed. And while the public tries to understand where the culled saigas and horns disappear to, access to the culling itself, it seems, already has its price.
In 2025, Kazakhstan received international permission to trade in saiga horns from the Kazakhstani population after the CITES conference decision to lift the zero export quota.
In 2026, the Ministry of Ecology announced the sale of accumulated state stocks. Thus, in September 2026, JSC "Zhasyl Damu" put up for auction 1 tonne of saiga horns. The starting price of the lot was 1 billion 227 million 148 thousand tenge, and "Okhotzooprom" was named as the balance holder.
