Marat Abiyev Sentenced to 9 Years for Fuel Smuggling and Criminal Activity

A court found businessman Marat Abiyev guilty of illegally trafficking fuels and lubricants worth billions of tenge, some of which funded the banned association "Architects of the Future," Orda.kz reports.

The Specialized Interdistrict Court of Astana sentenced Abiyev to nine years in prison. He was convicted of creating and leading a criminal organization (Article 262, Part 1 of the Criminal Code), illegal trade in petroleum products (Article 197, Part 4, Sec. 1, 2), and economic smuggling (Article 234, Part 3, Sec. 2).

Additionally, he was banned for life from holding public office and prohibited from leading public associations for five years. His accomplices received eight-year sentences.

Some of this fuel was misrepresented as another oil product and sold for 11.3 billion tenge. Of this, 22,600 tons worth 6.7 billion tenge were smuggled abroad.

As part of the court ruling, authorities confiscated over 180 million tenge in assets from the defendants, while the group’s total criminal profits were estimated at six billion tenge.

A portion of the illicit fuel trade profits was used to fund Genesis, also known as Architects of the Future, a banned movement founded by Abiyev.

He was already sentenced to seven years in prison in August 2023 for creating and leading the organization.

According to case materials, in 2019, Abiyev registered a grain-growing company, and in 2020, he imported seeds from Canada and sowed fields in the Aqmola and North Kazakhstan regions. Before the harvest, he produced the film "Architects of the Future," falsely claiming a record crop yield of 35-50 c/ha, four times the national average.

The actual yield was only 11.44-20.4 c/ha. Despite this, Abiyev released the film on YouTube and used falsified data in appeals to government agencies to obtain arable land.

In January 2021, he founded the "Architects of the Future" movement without legal registration, establishing over 15 branches across Kazakhstan. He then launched a petition calling for allocating five million hectares of land, misleading approximately 300,000 people.

On May 8, 2022, he attempted to stage a rally disguised as a free concert, drawing Genesis supporters to Astana.

On November 26, 2022, he gathered over 300 people in a nightclub, screened his film "Architects of the Future," and called for a march toward the Aqorda presidential palace — law enforcement swiftly stopped it.

Original Author: Ruslan Loginov