Officials in Kashkadarya and Surkhandarya were arrested for bribery and cover-up

In Kashkadarya and Surkhandarya regions, officials have been arrested for accepting bribes to conceal illegal activities. The State Security Service reported these incidents.

In Kashkadarya, an official from the "Safe River Administration," a state institution under the Ministry of Ecology, Environmental Protection, and Climate Change, was found to have accepted a bribe of $3,000. The bribe was taken in exchange for ignoring illegal sand mining operations by a resident of the Karshi district, who was using special equipment near the Kashkadarya river. The official was apprehended with physical evidence, including the bribe money and the equipment used for the illegal mining. A criminal case has been initiated against this official under Article 210 (Bribery) of the Criminal Code, Clause "v," and he has been placed in preventive detention.

In Surkhandarya, a leading expert from an LLC responsible for controlling and measuring construction activities, along with officials from another LLC engaged in construction in the Jizzakh region, were charged by the prosecutor's office in May under Article 167 of the Criminal Code (Embezzlement or Looting by Deception). The expert had promised to omit certain violations from the inspection report of construction works in the Yangiabad district in exchange for a bribe of 400 million sums, of which he received 150 million sums. He was arrested during the transaction. A criminal case has been opened against him under Articles 25,168, Part 3, Clauses "a" and "v," and Article 28,211, Part 2, Clause "b," with preventive detention applied.

It is also worth noting that earlier, assistant governors in Tashkent and Jizzakh regions were caught accepting bribes.