More than 31,000 people in Kazakhstan were victims of pyramid schemes in 2021. The amount of damage they suffered exceeded 54 billion tenge, director of the Institute of Parliamentarism Mansurkhan Makhambetov said during a round table on counteracting the activity of pyramid schemes. Fraudsters often hide behind legal microfinance organizations, bookmaker agencies, consumer cooperatives and closed mutual funds, he added. Liability for advertising pyramid schemes is provided for in article 150 of the Code of administrative violations. However, experts are confident that the punishment should be more severe to solve the aforementioned problem.
“Firstly, we need to identify pyramid schemes promptly and take preventive measures to solve the problem. Secondly, we need to strengthen criminal liability. As you know, the current Criminal Code provides for a punishment of an organization that launches pyramid schemes. People involved in the distribution of advertisement and vines don’t carry any responsibility for this. Today we are just considering the issue of responsibility of these actors under the Criminal Code,” said Mansurkhan Makhambetov, Director of the Institute Of Parliamentarism.
The meeting was attended by members of the Mazhilis, representatives of the Financial Monitoring Agency and legal organizations. They pledged to jointly develop and submit several proposals to amend the laws ‘On advertising’, and ‘On state regulation, control, and supervision of financial market and organizations’.
Translation by Saniya Sakenova
Editing by Saule Mukhamejanova
