Central Asia’s War on the Mob

Authorities in Uzbekistan proclaimed a 40-day campaign to strike against organized crime in early December. Before the campaign was given a name and went nation-wide, Tashkent police began a series of raids in the capital. On November 28, Baxtiyor Kudratullaev – aka Bakhti Tashkentskiy or Bakhti of Tashkent – and two others were detained on charges that included large-scale extortion. Kudratullaev, 52, has an allegedly long history of crime, with time in prison as recently as 2014. In 2018, RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service reported rumors that he’d orchestrated a gathering of “thieves-in-law” from Kazakhstan and Russia’s criminal underworlds in Tashkent.

“Thieves-in-law” refers to members of a criminal network (or perhaps more accurately, criminal networks) stretching across the former Soviet Union.

On December 1 came the arrest of 73-year-old Salim Abduvaliev, also known as Salimbay or “Salim the Rich.” Officially, since 2017 Abduvaliev has been the deputy head of the National Olympic Committee and previously he headed the country’s wrestling association. A leaked 2006 U.S. diplomatic cable characterized him as a “crime boss” and a “mafia chief” whose primary trade was selling government positions. After news broke that Abduvaliev had been detained, Tashkent police announced that he was under investigation in connection with an illegal weapons possession charge.

Local media in Uzbekistan reported that a warrant had been issued for Gafur Rahimov, another alleged crime boss whose day jobs have included being a deputy head of the National Olympic Committee (like Abduvaliev) and most recently as the controversial head of the International Boxing Association (AIBA). In late 2017, Rahimov was targeted for sanctions by the U.S. Treasury Department over his connections to the thieves-in-law. As of writing, his arrest has not been reported.

In the ensuing early days of December, Uzbek news was filled with criminals detained. In a series of raids in Tashkent, reported on December 6, 34 were arrested and 11 criminal cases opened. Tashkent regional police publicized the raids on Telegram, sharing photos of confiscated weapons and alleged criminals in handcuffs. Across the country, regional police went to work: 38 “wanted persons” were arrested in Bukhara according to a December 7 press release from the regional internal affairs department; Fergana authorities proclaimed the arrest of 50 people and that 25 more had been detained on “suspicion of hooliganism.”

RFE/RL reported that in the first week or so of the campaign, more than 200 “suspected career criminals” had been detained.

Uzbekistan’s campaign comes on the heels of a wide-ranging effort in Kyrgyzstan, kicked off with the killing by police of criminal kingpin Kamchybek Kolbaev in a Bishkek bar on October 4. Kolbaev had a $5 million bounty on him – payable by the U.S. State Department’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program (TOCRP) – for information leading to his arrest and/or conviction. Yet he lived relative freely in Kyrgyzstan after being released early from jail (the most recent time, that is) in 2021 until being killed by police this fall.

After Kolbaev’s death, Kamchybek Tashiev, the head of Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for National Security (SCNS), went on the war path. In early November, he announced that more than 200 civil servants were being dismissed from their jobs “for connections with criminal elements and organized crime groups,” specifically naming Kolbaev and Raiymbek Matraimov.

He proclaimed that “from now on there will be neither Kolbaev’s mafia, nor Matraimov’s mafia, nor other mafias in Kyrgyzstan.”

Matraimov is perhaps Kyrgyzstan’s most famous criminal, owing to the deep stack of investigative reports orchestrated by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), along with Kyrgyz partner Kloop and RFE/RL, which first hit headlines in 2019. In 2020, Matraimov earned the dubious distinction of being sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act by the U.S. State Department.

Tashiev rose to power in tandem with Sadyr Japarov, now president, in the strange days after Kyrgyzstan’s 2020 revolution. There was no shortage of rumors that duo was elevated thanks to the support of Kyrgyzstan’s criminal elements – Japarov was in jail until the protests that October and not exactly on anyone’s political bingo card. These things are nearly impossible to prove as the whole game is one of shadows and influence (and money, of course).

On December 11, in providing an update, the Kyrgyz SCNS stated, “such work to cleanse government agencies of unscrupulous employees with selfish goals will continue to be carried out in all spheres of the state’s life.”

There are several questions worth asking – and tracking the answers to – as these campaigns in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan progress. First: Who actually benefits? In the case of Kyrgyzstan, purging the customs service of people tied to Matraimov, for example, creates an opportunity to fill the service with people loyal to Tashiev. Matraimov, if anything, proved that the customs service in particular was a lucrative perch.

The anti-mafia campaign is happening in parallel with a government effort to close down critical investigative media – including Kloop, which played a major part in reporting on Matraimov’s corruption. Taken together, it is not a far-fetched conclusion to suggest that it’s not really the crime that’s the problem, it’s the criminals – and their potential to become political problems or political challengers themselves. Kolbaev, for example, was reported to have attended the wedding of former speaker of the Jogorku Kenesh Akhmatbek Keldibekov’s son alongside a smattering of well-connected figures, from elusive former president Sooronbai Jeenbekov to Matraimov. Even Tashiev showed up at that wedding. Less than a month later, Kolbaev was killed.

It’s also important to keep track of who escapes these campaigns. In Uzbekistan, Gafur Rahimov will be a key figure to watch. Several weeks before the 40 day anti-crime campaign began in Tashkent, Rahimov was photographed at a boxing match in the capital sitting next to President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s son, Miralisher Mirziyoev, and the president's son-in-law, Otabek Umarov. Those are powerful friends.

It is far too soon to determine whether these campaigns are genuine or politically strategic, but the history tilts the scale of assumption toward the latter. Even Islam Karimov occasionally launched clean-up operations of Uzbekistan’s criminal underworld, leaving intact those who served his interests and sweeping aside those who may have had ambitions beyond their station.