In the Abai region, police uncovered a criminal scheme involving the theft of pine saplings intended for landscaping and reforestation of the area's forestland.
According to Polisia.kz, the criminal group included local residents and former employees of the Semey Ormany State Nature Reserve.
In the Pavlodar region, the 38-year-old organiser and his accomplices were detained and taken into custody. More than 260,000 saplings were seized from the suspects, with a total value exceeding 500 million tenge.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs reminded that illegal logging, destruction and theft of forest resources cause enormous damage to the country's ecology and could lead to more serious consequences.
It is worth recalling that earlier, Majilis deputy Bakytzhan Bazarbek stated that theft had occurred during tree planting across almost the entire country. According to him, only in the Mangystau region, hundreds of thousands of trees were not planted: in 2021, out of a planned 556,000 trees, only 20,983 were planted, and in 2022, out of 167,000, only 21,000 were planted. In the East Kazakhstan region, in 2021, instead of 127,000, only 85,000 trees were planted.