A former deputy of the Aktobe city maslikhat handed 80 million tenge to a female entrepreneur to develop her business and ended up with nothing — the woman has now gone on trial, the website infohub.kz reports.
According to case materials, the 33-year-old head of a chain of cosmetology clinics offered to let investors put money into her business and earn profits from reselling South Korean medical devices to CIS countries, as well as from expanding the clinic network. One female entrepreneur first gave her 10 million tenge in cash, then took out a 24 million tenge bank loan and handed that money over as well. Another woman believed the promises of profit from investing in the business and gave her the proceeds from the sale of a private house. The defendant now owes her more than 14 million tenge.
The biggest loser was the former city maslikhat deputy. He was on good terms with the woman, received services at her clinic, trusted her and handed over a total of 80 million tenge. At first she repaid part of the debt once a month, but then the payments stopped. The victim told the court that, including interest, the defendant owes him 97 million tenge.
The entrepreneur's criminal case covers five episodes in total. She did not admit guilt and said she had not offered anyone investment in her business but had simply borrowed money. According to her, she took 59 million tenge from one victim and returned 89 million, but because they were friends she did not document the repayment. As for the former deputy, she said he filed a police complaint because she stopped answering his calls. She could not pick up the phone, she said, because she was in a temporary detention facility.
The court found the defendant guilty of fraud on all counts and sentenced her to 5 years and 6 months in prison. However, she was not taken into custody: the court deferred execution of the sentence for 5 years, since the convicted woman is a mother of four children, the youngest of whom was born in July this year. The verdict also states that she is divorced. The court ordered the Aktobe woman to compensate the victims for their losses. The sentence has not yet entered into legal force.