An interrupted lunch
On 26 June 2024, at around 14:00, three men in civilian clothes, later identified as junior operatives Serikbay Kulanov, Maqsud Nazarov and Akzhigit Pirmentaev from the Drug Trafficking and Psychotropic Substances Control Unit of the Criminal Investigation Department, entered the “Fistik” café on Afrosiyob Street in Mirobod District. They approached citizen M.Q., who was having lunch, confiscated the bag containing his phone and laptop, and forced him into a Nexia car waiting outside.
Confused, M.Q. asked to see their service IDs. The men replied that he would see them at the Internal Affairs building and drove him straight to the Tashkent City Main Internal Affairs Department.
What happened in room 328?
Once inside room 328, senior operative Anvar Polatov (38) and specially designated operatives Utkir Umrqulov and Jalol Khayrullayev (both born 1989) began interrogating M.Q. Utkir Umrqulov slapped him twice and demanded the phone password. When M.Q. refused, he was slapped again. The officers accused him of hacking state-related organizations, showed photos of his acquaintance Sarvar and nephew Khushnud, and threatened that “killing someone in Tashkent costs only $2,000”. They warned that unless he paid, he would be imprisoned and his parents forced to sell their home to cover the “debt”.
Under pressure, M.Q. admitted that in 2018 he had worked on a foreign programming project arranged by Sarvar and received around 1,000 Monero as payment. The officers forced him to call a trusted friend, Javlon Ahmedov. Unbeknown to M.Q., Javlon Ahmedov was already in contact with Utkir Umrqulov and had tipped him off weeks earlier that M.Q. allegedly held large amounts of cryptocurrency obtained illegally.
The transfer
That same evening, Jalol Khayrullayev sent M.Q. a Tether USDT wallet address via Telegram. Throughout the day, M.Q. liquidated various cryptocurrencies in his wallet and transferred the equivalent of $233,000 (including $13,000 belonging to the second victim, J.) to the address provided.
The officers then went to J.’s office in Yakkasaray District, detained him the moment he opened the door, and brought him back to the police building. There, J. was also beaten, handcuffed, and threatened with a truncheon until he handed over access to his wallet and admitted receiving $20,000 in crypto from a previous project.
