Petropavlovsk Entrepreneur Sentenced to Six Years for 840 Million Tenge Embezzlement

The Petropavlovsk City Court has delivered its verdict in the criminal case against Semyon Pak, head of Green Smart Farm.

He was accused of embezzling 840 million tenge from the National Fund, received through the social entrepreneurship corporation Soltustik for the purchase of imported greenhouse equipment, Orda.kz reports.

Back in March, the now-defunct Antikor announced the theft of the enormous sum. Orda.kz later identified the defendant as a 41-year-old businessman from Almaty.

According to investigators, Pak was supposed to use the funds to buy South Korean equipment and build a greenhouse on the outskirts of Petropavlovsk.

The trial began in February. In court, defense lawyers insisted that their client’s actions did not constitute a crime and that the pre-trial investigation was biased. Before the verdict was announced, Pak himself declared the charges to be “a fairy tale” authored by an inattentive investigator.

The plot of the fairy tale is in focus, not the clarification of real circumstances. I bought the base of LLP Mushroom World for 240 million tenge — a significant sum, and the seller presented a bank receipt. But no one studied the purchase agreement,Pak said.

He added that agreements with the regional akimat stipulated that funding for equipment would come from the local budget, utility networks would be installed at the expense of the republican treasury, and he would provide design and assessment work.

At the time, there was no design estimate and no equipment supplier. Everyone knew this — I told the investigator. These contradictions arose from our agreements. We entered an existing facility with a new project, and in order to shape it, we first needed a supplier,  he explained.

Pak argued that if this had been a scam, he would not have spent three years developing the project, securing collateral, building expertise, conducting analytics, and working with South Korean partners.

During closing arguments, Prosecutor Shynar Yelemesova requested eight years’ imprisonment. On August 20, Judge Takhmina Sobirova found Pak guilty under paragraph 2, part 4, article 190 of Kazakhstan’s Criminal Code and sentenced him to six years in a medium-security colony.

The court also banned him from holding management or financially responsible positions in financial and commercial organizations for seven years. At the same time, the civil claim from JSC SPK Soltustik was dismissed.

The verdict has not yet entered into legal force, and Pak intends to appeal.

Original Author: Kristina Yusicheva