Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs has proposed establishing a regional center of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Astana to combat cybercrime across Eurasia. The proposal includes specialist training and the sharing of information on cyber threats and investigative practices.
Interior Minister Yerzhan Sadenov presented the plans at a cybercrime conference in Astana on November 4. The ministry said delegates from 27 other countries attended and that United Nations leadership had supported the initiative in principle.
Sadenov cited online fraud, in which a suspect and a victim can be in different countries while stolen money passes through accounts in several jurisdictions within minutes. He urged police agencies to share information faster so they could trace transfers and identify links between criminal groups.
Kazakhstan recorded about 15,000 cases of online fraud in the first nine months of 2026, down nearly 21% from about 19,000 in the same period in 2025. Zhandos Suyinbay, who heads the ministry’s cybercrime department, said at an October 21 briefing that more than 90 million fraudulent calls had been blocked since the start of the year.
Under tighter mobile phone registration rules intended to curb fraud, new subscribers must now verify their identities using biometrics before their numbers can be activated.
In June 2025, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced plans to make banks and mobile carriers jointly liable for fraud committed using their infrastructure. An amendment that took effect in March 2026 requires banks and payment providers to reimburse customers if they process a transfer to a recipient already listed in the National Bank of Kazakhstan’s Anti-Fraud Center database.
For cases involving data stored abroad, the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime provides a 24/7 network through which investigators can seek assistance from other member countries. Kazakhstan joined the convention on October 14, 2026, and it will enter into force for the country on February 1, 2027. Investigators will then be able to use the network to ask other parties to preserve data urgently while a formal request to obtain it is prepared.
Kazakhstan signed the United Nations Convention against Cybercrime in October 2025. The treaty provides for sharing electronic evidence, including in cases involving serious crimes committed offline, but had yet to enter into force as of November 5, 2026.
