On January 24, at the capital’s airport in Dushanbe, employees of the State Committee for National Security of Tajikistan detained Gulnora Tursunbaeva, the owner of the well-known jewelry store “Dzhilo” in the capital. She imported 9 kg 300 grams of gold from Turkey to Tajikistan, of which she declared only 4 kg, and the rest, in collusion with a customs officer, she tried to smuggle.
This was announced at a press conference on February 2 by the head of the customs service of Tajikistan, Khurshed Karimzoda. He noted that Ashraf Nazrimadov, the head of the customs checkpoint for passengers at the airport of Dushanbe, helped Tursunbaeva in organizing smuggling. He accepted the customs declaration from Tursunbaeva with inaccurate data on the amount of cargo and its weight. Nazrimadov was also detained by the State Committee for National Security for facilitating the import of smuggled goods into the country,” Karimzoda said.
Back in 2019, at the meeting with employees of the financial, tax and customs sectors, the President of Tajikistan spoke about such schemes for smuggling goods, when customs officers underestimate the quantity of goods and negotiate with its owner, setting the price as they want.
This is not the first time that Tajik customs officials have been involved in gold smuggling. In 2021, three customs officials were detained on suspicion of smuggling 90 kilograms of gold from Afghanistan into Tajikistan. Then the Dushanbe city court found nine people, including three customs officers, guilty of smuggling 90 kilograms of gold and $15 million from Afghanistan to Tajikistan and sentenced them to prison terms of 2 to 5.5 years.
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