The Paris kidnapping: a banker seized in the 16th arrondissement
The facts of 23 June 2025, so far as they are publicly established through French and international reporting, are these. An Uzbek banker, 48 years old, checked into…
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Batyr Rakhimov, a businessman and former president of football club Pakhtakor, was unanimously elected chairman of the Uzbekistan Tennis Federation on 17 February 2025 at an extraordinary conference held at the National Olympic Committee, replacing Alisher Mirsоatov, who departed to lead the Association of Winter Sports.
The former head of Jambay District’s ecology department has been sentenced to five years in prison for accepting an 11-million-soum computer in exchange for shelving an illegal tree-felling case and releasing an impounded truck.
Cabinet Resolution No. 585, signed on 21 October 2026, sets out a graduated financial penalty system for firms that over-abstract water or operate without contracts and permits, effective from 2027.
Uzbekistan’s road inspectorate found 5,815 violations at construction, reconstruction and repair sites in the first nine months of 2026, issuing more than 2,100 mandatory orders and forwarding 452 administrative cases to courts, even as fines for non-compliance were cut sharply under new legislation.
Joint raids by five Uzbek agencies between 19–21 October uncovered more than 120 cases of illegal gas-cylinder hoarding and above-rate resale, with state utility workers implicated in 39 cases and over 3,000 cylinders seized as evidence.
Amendments to 33 departmental instruments, registered by the Ministry of Justice on 20 October 2026, require banks, notaries, domestic airports and other bodies to accept digital versions of passports, ID cards, birth certificates and other key documents.
President Mirziyoyev has ordered officials to advance a package of infrastructure projects in Kashkadarya including a $350mn ADB-backed highway reconstruction and water supply schemes targeting 1.25 million residents.
A draft regulation published for public comment sets out the rules, principles and timelines for state accreditation of Uzbekistan’s educational institutions, with five-year cycles and the State Inspectorate for Education Quality Control as the governing authority.
Franklin Templeton’s Marius Dan says Uzbektelecom is the leading candidate for a 2027 listing as UzNIF maps out a pipeline of six portfolio IPOs, while shareholders face an 18-month wait for the fund’s first dividend payment.
Latest Investigations
View allEvery political family has members it would rather not discuss. Very few have a member whose résumé includes the alleged financing of political assassinations abroad, laundering for security-service generals, a collapsed bank, a Paris kidnapping investigation, allegations of money laundering in Spain, a €10 million bribery scheme in Turkey, alleged…
Franklin Templeton’s Marius Dan says Uzbektelecom is the leading candidate for a 2027 listing as UzNIF maps out a pipeline of six portfolio IPOs, while shareholders face an 18-month wait for the fund’s first dividend payment.
President Mirziyoyev has announced a $350 million reconstruction of 100 kilometres of the A-380 highway in Qashqadaryo, backed by a proposed ADB loan, alongside major water supply investments for the region.
President Mirziyoyev returned a payment-sector reform law to parliament, and deputies voted to drop it entirely — without debate or disclosure of which provisions he opposed.
Presidential Decree No. PQ-380 grants the newly appointed Education and Science Minister direct-hire authority for central staff until February 2027, as Uzbekistan consolidates two former ministries into one.
A Ministry of Justice regulation registered on 20 October 2026 requires banks to open dedicated accounts for businesses in insolvency, freezing ordinary debit operations and centralising fund management under court-appointed administrators.
More than 720 Tashkent apartment buildings were constructed without architectural permits, Construction Minister Sherzod Khidoyatov told parliament. The cases are under Prosecutor General oversight as authorities digitise controls and allocate 520 billion soums for residential-area improvements.
Business
More ⮞The facts of 23 June 2025, so far as they are publicly established through French and international reporting, are these. An Uzbek banker, 48 years old, checked into a hotel in Paris’s 16th arrondissement. He was, by the accounts that followed, a significant figure: the manager of an investment portfolio…
Governance & Reform
More ⮞Batyr Rakhimov, a businessman and former president of football club Pakhtakor, was unanimously elected chairman of the Uzbekistan Tennis Federation on 17 February 2025 at an extraordinary conference held at the National Olympic Committee, replacing Alisher Mirsоatov, who departed to lead the Association of Winter Sports.
President Mirziyoyev returned a payment-sector reform law to parliament, and deputies voted to drop it entirely — without debate or disclosure of which provisions he opposed.
Presidential Decree No. PQ-380 grants the newly appointed Education and Science Minister direct-hire authority for central staff until February 2027, as Uzbekistan consolidates two former ministries into one.
A Ministry of Justice regulation registered on 20 October 2026 requires banks to open dedicated accounts for businesses in insolvency, freezing ordinary debit operations and centralising fund management under court-appointed administrators.
More than 720 Tashkent apartment buildings were constructed without architectural permits, Construction Minister Sherzod Khidoyatov told parliament. The cases are under Prosecutor General oversight as authorities digitise controls and allocate 520 billion soums for residential-area improvements.
Uzbekistan’s Central Bank has restructured its financial regulatory sandbox, adding three testing tracks, opening applications to foreign firms, and requiring consumer disclosures on trial-stage services.
Uzbekistan’s construction minister says a new system bringing certified private maintenance firms into schools and kindergartens will launch next year, starting with a nationwide technical audit of every building.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Samarkand business forum that Washington is deploying American small modular reactors in Uzbekistan and modernising its energy grids — even as a dispute persists over whether Tashkent has formally committed to buying U.S. nuclear technology.
Construction minister Sherzod Khidoyatov told parliament that 4,973 lifts have exceeded their service life, while a presidential decree orders nearly 5,000 units repaired or replaced by 2030 and a new digital platform now gates occupancy certificates on lift compliance.
Uzbekistan’s construction minister told parliament that more than 720 multi-storey buildings in Tashkent were built without architectural permits, the General Prosecutor’s Office is handling the cases, and a new law introduces prison terms of up to seven years for repeat or fatal violations.
The Asian Development Bank’s outstanding loans to Karakalpakstan exceed $760 million — a fifth of its entire Uzbekistan portfolio — financing water treatment plants, road reconstruction and a 200-megawatt wind farm in one of Central Asia’s most climate-stressed regions.
A revised law signed by President Mirziyoyev on 14 October requires Uzbekistan’s Constitutional Court to livestream hearings and introduce digital case management by 1 January 2028, while imposing strict new procedural deadlines and an annual accountability report to parliament.
The Accounts Chamber, the procurement agency and the Presidential Administration’s Compliance Service have agreed a joint programme — including automated bid evaluation, repeal of direct-contract loopholes and public contract disclosure — following a presidential directive issued in February 2026.