Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Feb.19
By Demir Azizov- Trend:
Former Chairman of the Board of Mortgage Bank Otabek Jurayev and his deputy Muzaffar Ermatov were sentenced to 13 years in prison for currency manipulation, the Tashkent Prosecutor's Office stated.
In total, 11 defendants were former employees of the bank. As it was revealed during the trial, bankers sold currency funds allocated for sale to the public by the Central Bank in foreign only to their own contacts, who then sold them overpriced on the black market.
In this fraud alone, former chairman of the bank earned more than $1 million from February 2011 to October 2012 according to a prosecution representative.
Mortgage Bank was established in April, 2005 by the merger of Uzjilsberbank (public share housing savings banks in Uzbekistan) and Zamin mortgage bank and ranks among the 10 largest banks in the country. The main focus of its activity is preferential long term loans for individual housing construction and financing of enterprises producing construction materials.
At present, the authorised capital of the bank amounts to 138.3 billion soums. The largest shareholder is the Uzbekistan Ministry of Finance of (27.8 percent).
Official exchange rate on Feb.19 is 2222.73 soums / $ 1.
Translated by S.I.
Edited by S.M.