Astana, January 12, 2026 – The Europe Today: President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has met with Chairman of the Financial Monitoring Agency Zhanat Elimanov to review the Agency’s performance in 2025 and discuss its strategic objectives for the forthcoming period, the Akorda press service reported.
During the meeting, the Head of State was briefed on the Agency’s key achievements over the past year. According to the report, investigations were completed into 1,135 criminal cases, with 141.5 billion tenge in damages reimbursed to victims. Law enforcement authorities dismantled 15 organized criminal groups and shut down 29 illegal cash-out platforms with a combined turnover exceeding 128 billion tenge.
The Agency also suppressed the activities of 22 shadow cryptocurrency exchangers involved in laundering proceeds from drug trafficking and fraud. In addition, more than 1,100 illegal online crypto-exchange services and 20,000 so-called “drop cards” used to legalize illicit revenues were blocked.
In the financial sector, business relations were terminated with approximately 2,000 companies and 56,000 individuals suspected of involvement in money laundering schemes.
The Financial Monitoring Agency prevented 264.2 billion tenge in unjustified budget expenditures across 53 infrastructure projects. It also halted speculative price increases for socially important coal after exposing a scheme involving 2 billion tenge in illegal payments to executives of a commodity exchange.
Measures were also taken to prevent fuel shortages, with authorities uncovering the smuggling of 102,000 tonnes of gasoline abroad.
Mr. Elimanov reported on actions aimed at protecting citizens from involvement in online gambling, noting that criminal financial flows totaling more than 2.1 trillion tenge, facilitated through 35 payment organizations, had been exposed.
Additionally, the Agency identified violations related to the allocation of 625 land plots to 437 subsoil users who were not engaged in natural resource exploration, as well as the export of more than 382,000 tonnes of illegally extracted minerals.
Systemic instances of falsified reporting were also uncovered within the Social Health Insurance System, where the volume of services provided was artificially inflated by 26 billion tenge. These violations included cases of so-called phantom medical services billed for deceased persons.
Following the meeting, President Tokayev issued a series of specific directives outlining the Financial Monitoring Agency’s key priorities moving forward.
