State Seizes Tanker, Refinery and Fuel From Aktau Smuggling Group

Property confiscated from an organized smuggling group in Aktau has been transferred to the state. The list includes the Meliana oil tanker, Mangystau Oil Refining and thousands of tons of fuel, Orda.kz reports.

In October 2025, a high-profile trial over the illegal export of oil through the Aktau seaport was completed in the Mangystau region. Five representatives of oil companies were convicted in the case. They were accused of participating in an organized criminal group and large-scale smuggling of oil products.

The group in Aktau emerged in 2022. It included:

• Renald Melkumov, founder of BatysNefteTrade LLP;
• Rafhat Kistaubayev, director of Standart Petroleum;
• Ramiz Ramazanov, director of Mangystau Oil Refining;
• Aleksei Raigorodsky, process engineer;
• Mergen Kenzhebekov, laboratory assistant.

According to the case materials, they declared oil as furnace fuel, which is not subject to export restrictions and additional taxes. To do this, they used forged documents and intermediary companies. In reality, ordinary oil was shipped to Azerbaijan through the Aktau port, where it could then be processed into gasoline, diesel and other products. In 2022–2023, more than 2,100 tons of raw materials were exported this way on the Meliana tanker.

The group’s infrastructure has now passed to the state.

On April 16, the Meliana tanker, Mangystau Oil Refining and the oil products located there were sold through the state auction website. The refinery, together with its land, buildings and equipment, was valued at 6.8 billion tenge.

The Meliana tanker, built in the Netherlands in 1995, was valued at 1.6 billion tenge. It is moored in the port of Aktau. The state also received the oil products on board that the smugglers had not managed to sell: desulfurized oil, diesel and fuel oil worth another 724 million tenge.

According to a financial assessment, the damage to the state in just one episode amounted to 109.9 million tenge in unpaid rent tax and 14.3 million tenge in customs duties.

The verdict was announced on September 26, 2025. All five defendants — Melkumov, Kistaubayev, Ramazanov, Raigorodsky and Kenzhebekov — were found guilty under Part 2 of Article 262 of the Criminal Code on participation in an organized criminal group and under paragraph 2, Part 3, Article 234 on especially large-scale smuggling.

Original author: Ilya Astakhov

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