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.
Batyr Rakhimov, founder of Kapitalbank and former long-serving president of Pakhтakor football club, was elected chairman of the Uzbekistan Tennis Federation on 17 February 2025 at an extraordinary conference overseen by the Ministry of Sport and the National Olympic Committee.
Senate Chairwoman Tanzila Norboyeva told a plenary session that hokims are wrongly seeking council approval for money already spent, and demanded councils authorise budgets in advance — just as parliament does at the national level.
Deputy Construction Minister Kozim To’laganov told the Senate that nearly 80 billion soums in project funding has been frozen pending correction of defects, as a new national transparency platform extends mandatory digital oversight to every construction site in Uzbekistan from 1 January 2021.
A new module on Uzbekistan’s openbudget.uz portal, launched 1 January 2026, lets citizens log in and trace how revenue from their personal income, land and property taxes was allocated across nearly 70 spending lines in 2025.
Seven bribery cases documented over roughly twelve months in Uzbekistan — ranging from $3,000 extorted for a council seat to $60,000 paid for a property ruling — expose how officials exploited control over land, law enforcement and local politics for personal gain.
Closed trials have opened in Tashkent against former MIA deputy minister Bekmurod Abdullayev and 29 co-defendants, ex-State Asset Management Agency head Akmal Ortikov, and former SGB internal-security chief Alijon Ashurov, on charges of embezzlement, abuse of office and bribery totalling hundreds of billions of soums.
Batyr Ikramjanovich Rakhimov, founder of Kapitalbank and former Pakhtakor FC president, was elected chairman of the Uzbekistan Tennis Federation on 17 February 2025, adding a prominent sporting role to a business portfolio spanning finance, insurance, construction and food production—and raising standard governance questions about elite network concentration in Uzbek sport administration.
Javlonbek Ismatov, accused of leading repeated raids on the Karakuton quarry of the Navoi Mining and Metallurgical Combine, has been extradited from Russia to face charges of theft, money laundering and assault totalling more than $1 million in alleged losses.
Supreme audit officials from Uzbekistan and Latvia met in Riga on 18 August 2026 at a high-level forum with EU Eastern Partnership institutions, reaffirming a cooperation framework that has grown from training workshops into a multi-year institutional partnership.
Turkish energy company Aksa Enerji plans to sign agreements within a week to manage electricity distribution networks in Tashkent, Jizzakh and Syrdarya regions, extending a model already in place in Samarkand under a 30-year public-private partnership.
Almalyk Mining Metallurgical Complex has defended over $200 million in tenders to foreign firms after a joint OCCRP and Finance Uncovered investigation found dormant companies, hidden common ownership, and disputed electronic signatures on contracts.
A company owned by Nur Muhammed Palvan, son of an alleged Central Asian smuggling tycoon, paid $3 million for a north London church now operating as the UK’s first Uyghur mosque — raising questions about the origin of the funds.