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A private enterprise in Yakkabog district, Kashkadarya region, has been caught mining coal without a valid extraction licence, selling the proceeds on the black market, and destroying dozens of protected trees and nearly three thousand shrubs while building an access road to the site — causing environmental damage assessed at more than 480 million soums.
Officials of Mega Asia Salt and Quartz, the company involved, held only a geological survey permit for the Zarmas coal deposit. That licence authorises exploration, not extraction or sale. Despite this, the company mined coal from the site and arranged to sell it commercially, according to the Kashkadarya regional police press service.
Caught in the Act
A joint operation by the Interior Ministry’s Operational Search Department and the Kashkadarya regional police’s operational search service established that a company employee had agreed to sell 500 tonnes of illegally extracted coal to a buyer for 350 million soums. Officers detained the employee while he was receiving an advance payment of 50 million soums, seizing the cash as material evidence.
Trees Uprooted, Damage Tallied
The same operation uncovered environmental destruction carried out during construction of the road to the Zarmas deposit. Twenty-four Zarafshan juniper trees — a species of particular ecological significance in the region — and nine wild olive trees were uprooted by the roots, along with approximately 3,000 shrubs. The total environmental damage from the tree and shrub destruction alone has been assessed at more than 480 million soums.
Criminal cases have been opened against the company’s director and others under Article 229 of the Criminal Code, covering wilful arbitrary conduct, and under Part 3 of Article 198, which addresses the deliberate damage, destruction or annihilation of crops, forests, trees or other vegetation causing large-scale harm. Preliminary investigative steps are under way.
The case echoes a separate incident reported earlier in Tashkent, where a construction company was found to have illegally felled 51 trees and unlawfully dumped waste, resulting in a combined liability of more than 5.6 billion soums in environmental compensation and fines against its director.