On the occasion of the International Anti-Corruption Day and the International Human Rights Day, the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Treasury announced sanctions and visa restrictions for corrupt officials and human rights violators.
The former deputy head of the State Customs Service of Kyrgyzstan, Raiymbek Matraimov, was placed under Magnitsky sanctions.
The justification says that he was involved in a customs scheme through which at least $ 700 million has been laundered from the Kyrgyz Republic.
Matraimov is included in the sanctions list under Decree 13818 as a foreign person who is a current or former government official, responsible or implicated, or directly or indirectly involved in corruption, including misappropriation of government assets, expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or extraction of natural resources, or involved in bribery.
In addition, Matraimov is sanctioned under section 7031 «due to his involvement in serious corruption in the line of duty.» Pursuant to Section 7031, when the Secretary of State of the United States has credible information about the direct or indirect involvement of foreign government officials in serious corruption or gross violations of human rights, these individuals and their immediate family members are not eligible to enter the United States of America.
The law also requires from the Secretary of State to publicly or privately include officials and their immediate family members in the sanctions list. In addition to Matraimov, the department included his wife Uulkan Turgunova in the list.
Joint journalistic investigation by Azattyk, Kloop and OCCRP on smuggling and corruption at Customs caused a wide public outcry.
Raiymbek Matraimov is a defendant in a criminal case on corruption at the Customs Service. In November 2019, he was already summoned for interrogation by the State Committee for National Security.
In October, the national security bodies of Kyrgyzstan began pre-trial proceedings on the fact of corruption at the Customs. It was found out that since the beginning of 2016 to the present the former deputy chairman of the Customs Service Raiymbek Matraimov, other officials of the state service and controlled participants of the foreign economic activity established a corruption scheme on extraction of shadow incomes during customs administration, as a result of which the state budget was damaged on an especially large scale.
The detainee agreed to enter into a plea bargain and stated that he was ready to reimburse 2 billion soms to the budget. The court released Raiymbek Matraimov on pledge not to leave town. He had to transfer the entire amount of damage by the end of November 2020.
