A 39-year-old postal worker, Bolat Kerimkulov, has been sentenced in the Turkistan region. He was found guilty of embezzling 69.8 million tenge from the branch of Kazpost JSC in the Kazygurt district.
According to Ratel.kz, the investigation established that in January 2023, Kerimkulov, working as an accountant-operator for Kazpost and having access to the branch's cash revenue, transferred 64 million tenge to his wife's account.
The illegal transfer was discovered within a few days, prompting an audit at the district post office. During this audit, it was revealed that an additional 5,892,637 tenge, allocated under a state programme, had been stolen in a similar manner earlier.
Consequently, Kerimkulov was charged under Article 189, Part 4, Paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan (embezzlement or misappropriation of entrusted property on an especially large scale). In court, the defendant pleaded only partially guilty, claiming that he himself had identified a shortfall of 23 million tenge in the accounting department of the Kazygurt Kazpost branch.
Furthermore, the defendant stated that before his tenure, the previous accountant at the post office had also been stealing; this accountant resigned at the end of 2022. Incidentally, a criminal case was also opened against the former accountant, but it was dismissed – the investigation found no evidence of a crime in the suspect's actions.
Ultimately, the court found Kerimkulov guilty of embezzlement on an especially large scale and sentenced him to 8 years of imprisonment. He was also ordered to compensate Kazpost for damages amounting to 63,392,637 tenge and to pay a state fee of 1,901,779 tenge. It is reported that during the investigation, the defendant was only able to compensate for damages of around 6.5 million tenge.
At the same time, the court issued a ruling to review the lawfulness of terminating the investigation against the former employees of the accounting department of the district postal branch.