In Fergana, 76 million soums collected for charity were staked on a totalizator

A 19-year-old young man who misappropriated charity funds collected for seriously ill patients has been detained in Fergana region. He stated that he staked 76 million soums of the embezzled money on an online totalizator and lost it. This was reported by the Department for Combating Cybercrime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

According to reports, the young man, born in Tashkent in 2007, was previously found to have systematically violated legislative requirements related to crypto-asset trading in Uzbekistan. The value of the crypto-assets he illegally circulated exceeded 408 thousand US dollars, or over 4 billion 894 million 152 thousand soums in national currency.

Further investigations revealed that he had noticed charity funds being collected on social networks for people suffering from serious illnesses. Following this, he created a fake Telegram account under the name of an Instagram blogger and reached out to the patients' relatives.

The suspect asked them how much money had been collected on the card, promising to temporarily transfer the funds to his own card and later return them in cash. In this manner, he misappropriated nearly 43 million soums. In addition, he obtained over 30 million soums using the same method from an employee of a Paynet branch who was an acquaintance of the patient.

According to him, he deposited all of the embezzled money into an online totalizator account, staking a total of 76 million soums and losing it.

In connection with this incident, a criminal case has been initiated against the young man under paragraphs "b" and "v" of Part 3 of Article 168 (fraud), as well as paragraph "a" of Part 3 of Article 278-8 (violation of legislation in the field of crypto-asset circulation) of the Criminal Code.