Former deputy ministers and the former head of the first credit bureau were convicted in Kazakhstan in a large bribery case.
The Almalinsky district court in Almaty announced a verdict in a case of bribery in the amount of 75 thousand dollars and an alleged plan with the revenues of the Human Resources Development Center worth billions of tenge.
Among the convicts can be found the former First Deputy Minister of Labor Ekamadi Sarabsov, the former head of the Center for the Development of Labor Resources Dault Argendikov and the former head of the First Credit Bureau Ruslan Umarov. Two employees of the Center for Human Resources Development, Tauka Boltayev and Akzhul Dushimov, were also tried.
The defendants were accused of abusing power, accepting and giving bribes, as well as creating and using malicious computer programs.
Argentikov, Umerov and Serbasov were arrested in June in connection with a bribe of 75 thousand dollars. During searches, law enforcement officers found 370 thousand dollars and 4.5 million tenge on them.
According to the researchers, in 2020 the management of the state center and the private credit bureau changed the terms of the agreement, thanks to which the first credit bureau received a more favorable share of the income from information services.
The Financial Supervisory Agency claimed that the participants in the program used special software that slowed down the processing of applications from the competing state credit bureau. The investigation estimated the estimated damage at more than 2 billion tenge.
The court found all five defendants guilty of individual counts, but acquitted them of some of the charges.
▫ Argentikov and Omarov were sentenced to 7.5 years in prison with lifetime denial of the right to hold certain positions.
▫ Sarbsov was sentenced to 4 years in prison with a lifetime ban on public service.
▫ Bulatbaev and Doshimov were sentenced to 2 years in prison with the denial of the right to engage in activities related to information systems, communication networks and software products for a period of one year each.