In the capital of Uzbekistan, employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs detained an organized group of citizens involved in illegal transactions with crypto assets. This was reported by the Cybersecurity Center under the Department of Operational Investigations of the ministry.
According to the investigation, the detainees serviced foreign betting companies and laundered gambling proceeds through the DECENT crypto platform. Over the course of eight months, the group carried out transactions totaling more than 180 billion soums (about 14.55 million US dollars).
The detention took place in the Yashnabad district of Tashkent as part of the “Safe Cyberspace” operation. During searches, the participants were found to possess about one thousand bank cards used for money laundering, as well as 38 mobile phones, which were seized as physical evidence.
The Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs initiated a criminal case under subparagraphs “a” and “v” of part 3 of article 278-8 of the Criminal Code of Uzbekistan (“Violation of legislation in the field of crypto asset circulation by an organized group on an especially large scale”). The suspects face from 3 to 5 years of imprisonment.