Sultan Makhmadov. Photo: tengrinews.kz
Kazakhstan has arrested prominent businessman Sultan Makhmadov, dubbed the “vodka king” by local media 15 years ago, according to the official Telegram channel of the Agency for Financial Monitoring of the republic.
The agency reports that Makhmadov established an organized criminal group engaged in the illegal production and distribution of ethyl alcohol. “To conceal their illegal activities, the suspects presented their operations as lawful production of bioethanol and feed additives,” the agency noted.
In reality, a clandestine alcohol plant was organized on the premises of LLP “BM,” owned by Makhmadov, fully equipped for industrial-scale production of ethyl alcohol. The raw material was supplied to underground workshops in the Zhambyl and East Kazakhstan regions, as well as Shymkent, where it was used to produce surrogate alcoholic products posing a serious threat to public health.
“During operational-investigative actions, 122,000 liters of ethyl alcohol worth over 280 million tenge ($520,000) were seized from the shadow market. Additionally, 18 units of mining equipment were discovered at the production base during a search,” the AFM press service stated.
Makhmadov has been placed in pretrial detention for two months. The agency noted that he was previously convicted of similar crimes in 2010.
Earlier, Makhmadov was accused of disclosing state secrets and losing classified documents from the KNB department; for this case, he received seven years in prison. The investigation stemmed from a November 21, 2008 article in Alma-Ata Info titled “Who Runs Our Country: the President or the KNB?”, which published an official letter from the head of the KNB department in the then-Dzhambul region (now Zhambyl region). The letter was classified, and the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, Ramazan Yesergepov, was sentenced to three years in general-regime prison.
While under house arrest in 2009, Makhmadov attempted to escape by jumping from the second floor of his mansion, climbing through a hole in the fence, and getting into a waiting car. He was only apprehended at Kyrgyzstan’s Manas Airport while trying to fly to Moscow.
