The Belgian authorities have decided to transfer $108 million to Uzbekistan, which was confiscated in connection with a corruption and money laundering case related to telecommunications contracts. This was announced by the Brussels Prosecutor's Office, as reported by Gazeta.uz.
The funds were seized in Belgium at the request of Uzbek judicial authorities, who investigated illegal commission payments and money laundering linked to the issuance of telecommunications contracts.
"The Brussels Prosecutor's Office received a request for international legal assistance from Uzbek judicial authorities. As a result of executing this request, which was based on the UN Convention Against Corruption, $200 million was frozen in Belgium at the request of Uzbek authorities," the statement said.
According to a ruling by the Dutch-speaking court of Brussels, these assets and the accrued interest are to be distributed between the two countries.
The court ruled that $108 million would be transferred to Uzbekistan. The funds were allocated following a mechanism similar to that used for distributing confiscated amounts among European Union member states.
Earlier, the Brussels Prosecutor's Office had appealed to Belgium’s Central Office for Seizure and Confiscation of Property (COIV), requesting that the remaining funds be transferred to the Belgian state treasury.
It is likely that this case is related to the criminal proceedings against Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbekistan’s first president. In September 2022, Uzbekistan’s Deputy Minister of Justice, Muzraf Ikramov, stated that the total value of assets linked to Karimova and her criminal network—located in France, the U.S., Latvia, and other countries—was estimated at nearly $1.4 billion (or 15 trillion Uzbekistani soums).
At the time, he noted that Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Justice planned to begin working with Belgian law enforcement to recover nearly $240 million from Belgium.
"Since the investigation in Belgium is still ongoing (due to investigative secrecy), it is not possible to disclose much information about these assets," the deputy minister said.
Previously, Uzbekistan and Switzerland signed agreements to return confiscated illegally acquired assets worth $313 million for the benefit of the Uzbek population.
Gulnara Karimova was sentenced in 2015 to five years of restricted freedom and later transferred to a prison colony in 2019. In March 2020, she was sentenced to an additional 13 years and 4 months for embezzling state funds, concluding deals against Uzbekistan’s interests, and seizing property through extortion on an especially large scale.
In 2012, investigations into alleged bribes in Uzbekistan’s telecommunications sector began in the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sweden, followed by the U.S. in 2014.
According to U.S. authorities, Russian companies MTS and VimpelCom, along with Swedish-Finnish TeliaSonera, paid bribes through shell companies to individuals close to Karimova in exchange for access to the Uzbek telecommunications market.
In 2019, MTS reached a settlement with U.S. authorities over the Uzbekistan corruption case and agreed to pay a $850 million fine. VEON (formerly VimpelCom) paid $795 million in February 2016 under a settlement agreement with the U.S. authorities. In September 2017, Telia paid $965 million to the U.S. and Dutch authorities.
CentralasianLIGHT.org
April 3, 2025