A criminal group consisting of tax, customs, bank employees, deputy governor and businessmen was identified

As a result of the search operations conducted by the State Customs Service, the activities of an organized criminal group consisting of 17 tax officials, 1 customs official, 1 bank employee, 1 first deputy district khokim, and 18 business officials were exposed.

It was revealed that this group established 8 fake enterprises in 2020-2023 and embezzled a total of 24 billion 580 million soums of budget funds by unjustifiably recovering the negative difference of 15 percent value added tax (VAT) that was set to be refunded for furniture products that were fraudulently exported abroad.

Although the enterprises, whose activities were coordinated by a former tax officer and unofficially managed by this person, were registered in the Yangikurgan district of the Namangan region, their legal addresses were often changed without reason, and the names of persons who were not officially involved in the work were entered into them. Also, although the type of activity of the enterprises was indicated as furniture production, in fact they did not carry out any production.

In addition, the reporting documents indicated that the finished products were supposedly exported to Kyrgyzstan.

However, during the investigation, it was revealed that export operations were not carried out, the seals of the enterprises were forged by the organized group and export contracts were drawn up, and the above-mentioned value-added tax funds were illegally withdrawn from the state budget.

A criminal case was initiated under Articles 167, 179, 184, 209 and 228 of the Criminal Code and investigative actions were conducted.

During the investigation, 6 billion 808 million soums were recovered from the state. Also, 6 billion 300 million soums worth of property were seized to compensate for the damage caused, including 1 multi-storey private medical clinic building, 1 car wash, 2 apartments, 6 cars, as well as telephone and computer equipment.

The Mirzo Ulugbek District Court for Criminal Cases sentenced 14 of the 38 defendants to terms of imprisonment ranging from 5 years and 6 months to 7 years and 6 months.

In addition, 18 individuals were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment and were given a 3-year probationary period with the obligation to compensate for the material damage caused within 2 years, in accordance with Article 72 of the Criminal Code.

In addition, 6 of the defendants were sentenced to a term of restriction of liberty of at least 2 years. Follow “Zamin” news on “Telegram”