Organized crime in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan

LONDON (TCA) — When in late summer 2014 Kyrgyzstan’s then Interior Minister Abdulla Suranchiyev revealed names of local people’s representatives accusing them of “ties with organised crime,” a shockwave went through the country and beyond. Crime in Central Asia is a long ignored fact that is a deadly danger for the society. Of course, everyone knew about the organized crime groups and their ringleaders dubbed “avtoritety,” an equivalent for the western “godfathers,” but hardly anyone so far had realised that their power over the economy and indeed society itself had become so dangerously strong, exceeding that of the much-feared terrorism made in Afghanistan and the Near East. Continue reading