️ The State Security Service (SSS) and other law enforcement agencies have arrested officials of farmers' markets in the cities of Qarshi and Bukhara for attempting to illegally sell trading stalls. Investigations revealed that the market authorities were involved in selling commercial spaces to citizens outside the legal framework, bypassing required auctions.

️ In the Qarshi case, the market chairman and a controller colluded to demand $80,000 from a citizen seeking to engage in entrepreneurship, in exchange for formalizing a newly built 110-square-meter retail shop. They were apprehended with material evidence while receiving an advance payment of $30,000. Criminal cases have been initiated under Article 168, Part 4(a) of the Criminal Code (fraud on a particularly large scale) and Articles 28, 211, Part 3(a) (bribery on a particularly large scale), with investigative actions ongoing.

️ In a separate incident in Bukhara, the head of a wholesale agricultural products market and an executive were caught receiving $11,000 from a citizen for constructing a lightweight trading structure and allocating a 120-square-meter land plot within the market area. They face charges under Article 168, Part 3(a), (v) of the Criminal Code (fraud on a large scale using official position).

️ The SSS has urged citizens to report such legal violations via the short number 1520. These cases follow a prior incident in Tashkent Region, where a prosecutor's office clerk was arrested while taking $9,000 from an entrepreneur in exchange for settling electricity debt at a retail shop.

Source: www.gazeta.uz