New details of the criminal case against private employment agency which deceived people for 20 billion soums revealed

In October 2019, Kun.uz reported about a criminal case against officials of “Korean and migration xususiy bandlik agentligi” LLC, who were accused of especially large-scale fraud, promising to send thousands of citizens to work in South Korea. According to the prosecution, the organization’s officials promised to employ Uzbek citizens in South Korea and received around 27-34 million soums from each applicant for the service. In total, about 20 billion soums were received deceiving people. The money was spent on the personal needs of the LLC officials.

The investigation department under the Ministry of Internal Affairs revealed new details of this criminal case.

“About 3,500 citizens of Uzbekistan were deceived through fraud by officials of “Korean and migration xususiy bandlik agentligi” LLC. About 20 billion soums received from them were spent on the personal needs of company officials and were invested in real estate and movable property. For example, to purchase a dry fruit processing plant located in the Akkurgan district (Tashkent region), a café in the Yunusabad district, as well as various vehicles,” Umidjon Abdukhakimov, a senior investigator at the Investigation Department said.

As he states, according to the memorandum between Uzbekistan and the Republic of Korea, only the Agency of External Labor Migration under the Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations has the right to send Uzbek citizens for employment in South Korea.

During the preliminary investigative actions, 6 employees of “Korean and migration xususiy bandlik agentligi” were charged with committing a crime under paragraph a, part 4 of Article 168 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan (Large-scale fraud). A preventive measure in the form of arrest was applied against them, one employee was put on the wanted list.

In order to compensate for the material damage caused, by identifying the sources of funds that the company spent, about 7.6 billion soums were transferred to the account of the Investigation Department. In addition, objects of real estate and movable property worth about 9.5 billion soums were listed.

Thus, 17 billion soums have already been recovered out of nearly 20 billion soums of material damage caused to citizens by the private employment agency.

“After the completion of the preliminary investigation, the collected funds and the seized immovable and movable property will be presented to the court together with the criminal case materials. The funds recovered during the investigation will be returned to the victims only in accordance with the court decision that has entered into legal force,” Umidjon Abdukhakimov said. Investigative actions on the criminal case are ongoing.

Earlier, it was reported that the largest number of “victims” in this case were from Kashkadarya region.