A member of the Kyrgyzstan Parliament is proposing further government investigation following reports by OCCRP and its media partners that the country has harbored money laundering that is worth hundreds of millions of dollars and has cost the lives of currency couriers crossing its borders.

For years, a network of informal couriers has funneled millions of dollars out of Kyrgyzstan in cold, hard cash. The underground money transfer system fuels corruption, destroys transparency — and has claimed people’s lives. Here’s how it works.

As the season’s first snow fell, nearly a thousand people marched peacefully in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek on Monday in response to arecent investigation by RFE/RL’s Radio Azattyk, OCCRP, and its local member center, Kloop.

“I’m Aierken Saimaiti,” the man said. “Between 2011 and 2016, I transferred more than $700 million from Kyrgyzstan.”

Between 2000 and 2008, authorities in Kyrgyzstan divided up a large swath of Ataturk Park, a beloved green space in the country’s capital, Bishkek, and handed it out to 173 people — many of them wealthy and well-connected.

Almazbek Atambayev made a calculated bid for long-lasting power in Kyrgyzstan two years ago but now instead stands charged, the BBC reported Tuesday, with murder, planning a coup, fomenting unrest, and taking hostages.

As Kyrgyzstan's Parliament voted to strip former president Almazbek Atambayev’s immunity, he was busy barricading himself in his house, threatening to shoot at police if they came to take him away.

A former key member of ex Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambaev’s administration was arrested Sunday and is being detained, the latest Atambaev aide suspected of corruption while in office.

Kyrgyz authorities removed on Friday the head of the institution charged with issuing passports, a day after reporters published an investigation into a fraudulent tender procedure that saw a Lithuanian company winning the bid although not meeting tender requirements.  

Kyrgyzstan’s security services are investigating current and former government officials for accepting bribes from a Lithuanian company that won a tender to supply biometric passport booklets. Reporters for Kloop and OCCRP found what was wrong with the tender procedure.

The President of Kyrgyzstan called on the country’s corrupted, dysfunctional judicial and national security agencies to launch a merciless fight against graft, saying the problem is already threatening national security, the Times of Central Asia reported on Sunday.

A court in Bishkek found the head of a Kyrgyz opposition party and his co-defendant guilty of corruption and sentenced them to eight years in prison each, RFE/RL reported Wednesday.

Kyrgyz law enforcement officers arrested a criminal gang suspected of murder, robbery, vehicle theft and other crimes, Kyrgyz Interior Ministry’s press service reported Monday.

The head of an Kyrgyz opposition party and an ex-minister went on trial Monday for allegedly receiving US$ one million from a Russian businessman for helping him buy a Kyrgyz mobile operator.

Kyrgyzstan authorities charged a pro-government lawmaker for illegally transferring agricultural land into private hands and pocketing the money while acting as a regional governor, authorities told OCCRP on Tuesday.

Authorities in Kyrgyzstan charged a member of the country’s opposition party Ata-Meken and former Minister of Justice with corruption and barred him from leaving the country while investigations are underway, local media reported.

Kyrgyzstan authorities detained Sunday a prominent opposition leader on charges of fraud and corruption, which he and his supporters say are politically motivated.

A senior prosecutor in Kyrgyzstan survived an explosion on Friday in what media reported as an attempted bomb assassination.

Kyrgyz Prime Minister Temir Sariyev resigned Monday over allegations of corruption, Reuters reported, triggering the resignation of his entire cabinet.

Kyrgyz parliamentary deputy Khadzhimurat Korkmazov has allegedly been caught red-handed accepting a US$ 100,000 bribe, according to the Kyrgyz National Security Committee.