The Financial Monitoring Agency (FMA) has sent a case to court regarding the illegal extraction of manganese ore and its subsequent laundering in the Ulytau region.
According to the agency's press service, the suspect illegally mined manganese ore without permits from 2020 to 2023 at the ‘Vostochny’ quarry.
It is reported that the illegal activities were confirmed by aerospace images provided by JSC ‘Kazakhstan Gharysh Sapary’.
“During the investigation into the facts of unauthorised subsoil use, it was established that the land plot on which the quarry is located was not issued by authorised bodies for subsoil use, and there is no corresponding registration,” the statement says.
It has become known that the suspect, by drawing up fictitious documents, laundered illegally mined manganese ore and sold it both within Kazakhstan and abroad.
“Damage to the state has been established in the amount of more than 1 billion tenge. The volume of illegally mined ore amounts to 16 thousand tonnes, with a total value of more than 3 billion tenge,” the statement says.
The suspect's property worth 337 million tenge has been seized.
Recall that at the beginning of September, environmental prosecutors in Aktobe identified violations in the activities of LLP ‘Voskhod Khrom’ during the processing of chrome ore in the Khromtau district of the Aktobe region. It was reported that the enterprise operated throughout 2022 without the mandatory environmental permit.