Ukraine: Kyiv Police Arrest Uzbek Citizen Wanted for Financial Crimes Worth Hundreds of Millions

Published: 20 January 2017

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The suspect is alleged to have committed crimes worth hundreds of millions (Photo: Public Domain)

By Chris Benevento

Ukrainian border control officials arrested an Uzbek citizen wanted internationally for fraud in Ukraine, the Kyiv prosecutor’s office announced Thursday in a statement.

A spokeswoman from the office told OCCRP that the 33-year-old man was arrested upon arrival in Ukraine on Sunday after border agents realized that Uzbekistan had issued an international warrant against him, she said.

The man is suspected of embezzlement worth more than US$ 91 million, concealment of assets worth more than US$ 200 million, and money laundering worth nearly US$ 80 million in Swiss and Latvian currencies, according to the prosecutor’s office.

The Kiev Prosecutor’s Office spokeswoman declined to give the name of the suspect but Radio Ozodlik identified him as the nephew of late Uzbek President Islam Karimov's wife, Akbar Abdullayev, citing an unnamed spokesman for Kyiv’s Solomenskiy District Court.

Abdullayev, along with his mother Tamara Sabirova, controlled more than 70 percent of businesses in Uzbekistan’s Fergana region throughout the 2000s. A Tashkent court charged Abdullayev with embezzlement in 2014.