ASTANA, Kazakhstan, February 28. More than 1,000 attempts to transfer funds to the accounts of terrorist organizations were prevented in Kazakhstan in 2023, the Chairman of the country's Financial Monitoring Agency Dmitry Malakhov said during a meeting with the Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Trend reports.
He noted that as part of the fight against money laundering, business relations with over 5,700 clients have been terminated.
"More than 1,500 illegal online cryptocurrency exchange services have been identified and blocked. Investigation of 49 illegal miners is underway, while 1,200 attempts to transfer funds to the accounts of terrorist and extremist organizations have been identified and blocked," Malakhov explained.
Tokayev was also informed that 41 financial pyramids have been liquidated, and compensation of 4.6 billion tenge (about $10.2 million) has been provided to victims.
"Over 8,000 websites and accounts with signs of fraudulent activities have been blocked, access to 4,800 online casino sites has been closed. A mechanism for automatic blocking of payments to bookmakers by persons under 21 years old is being implemented in collaboration with second-tier banks and financial regulators," the agency's chairman highlighted.
Additionally, he informed that unwarranted budget expenditures of 74 billion tenge (about 176 million dollars) have been prevented, the activities of 59 shadow platforms for criminal cashing have been disrupted, 7 criminal groups have been eliminated, and pre-trial investigations have recovered damages of 141 billion tenge (about $313 million). In the field of combating illegal capital outflows, assets worth 276 billion tenge (nearly $612 million) have been returned.
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