Behind closed doors
Former employees of the State Security Service of Uzbekistan have been sentenced to long prison terms in a corruption case involving the sending of migrants to Seoul
Behind closed doors
A Tashkent court has sentenced several former officers of the State Security Service (SSS) of Uzbekistan and a former deputy head of the Agency for External Labor Migration (AELM) to long prison terms of up to 16 years. They were accused of organizing a corruption scheme involving the dispatch of compatriots to work in South Korea, "Azattyk Asia" reports.
By court decision, the former head of the SSS Internal Security Department, Colonel Alijon Ashurov, received 16 years in a penal colony. Department officers Ganchar Uzokov and Timur Shariksiev were sentenced to 15.5 years in prison each. Former First Deputy Head of the AELM Sukhrob Sayfutdinov was sentenced to 15 years in a penal colony.
The proceedings in this case were held behind closed doors, as the investigation materials contain personal data of citizens and other information that the law prohibits from being publicly disclosed.
The Prosecutor General's Office of the republic reported the scandal in the migration sector in May 2026. According to the agency, a group of fraudsters was identified, including employees of the relevant agency, who had built a corruption scheme for sending Uzbek citizens to Seoul. According to investigators, the perpetrators, using their official position, took $7,000–$12,000 from those wishing to go to work abroad, in addition to official payments. However, in the end, the migrants did not go anywhere. As a result, hundreds of people were deceived, and the total amount of funds received by the fraudsters was estimated at nearly $90 million.
At the end of July this year, it was reported that four suspects in committing corruption crimes when sending labor migrants to Korea were charged under paragraphs "a" and "b" of Part 3 of Article 210 ("Receiving a bribe"), Article 243 ("Legalization of income obtained from criminal activity"), and Part 1 of Article 301 ("Abuse of power, exceeding official authority, or inaction of authority") of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan.
Against the backdrop of this and several other scandals involving AELM employees, in early September of this year, the President of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, dismissed the director of the agency, Bekhzod Musaev.