Group deals primarily in the trafficking of illicit drugs, but also engages in the crime of extortion.
Transnational criminals are engaged in an unprecedented range of illicit activities that are destabilizing to nations and populations around the globe. Many deal in drug trafficking, which fuels the power, impunity, and violence of criminal organizations internationally. Others are involved in human trafficking, a worldwide, ever more violent and lucrative scourge that preys on the most vulnerable among us.
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Targeting The Kolbayev Criminal Network
Seeking to diminish the size, scope and influence of such transnational criminal organizations, and to identify and bring to justice their members, the United States Congress last year authorized the Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program.
The program is managed by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs in coordination with U.S. federal agencies. This program offers monetary rewards for information that helps dismantle transnational criminal organizations, identifies or locates key leaders, disrupts financial mechanisms, or leads to the arrest and/or conviction of members of transnational criminal organizations who operate outside the United States.
On May 29th, the U.S. Department of State offered a reward of up to one million dollars for information leading to the disruption of the financial mechanisms of the criminal network of Kamchybek Kolbayev.
Kolbayev’s criminal network is based in Central Asia. It deals primarily in the trafficking of illicit drugs, but also engages in the crime of extortion. It is part of the Brothers’ Circle transnational criminal organization, a multiethnic criminal group composed of leaders and senior members of several criminal organizations, largely based in countries of the former Soviet Union. Many Brothers' Circle members share a common ideology based on the “thief in law” tradition, which seeks to spread their brand of criminal influence around the world.
Kamchybek Asanbekovich Kolbayev was identified by President Obama as a significant foreign narcotics trafficker in June 2011 and also by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in February 2012, for acting on behalf of the Brothers’ Circle as the “overseer” for their activities in Central Asia, including narcotics trafficking.
By targeting Kamchybek Kolbayev and his criminal organization, the United States is taking a decisive step toward crippling this criminal group’s ability to function by shutting it out of the international financial system.
Anyone with information on Kolbayev’s criminal network should contact the U.S Department of the Treasury at 202-622-2420, email OFAC_OGT_Investigation@treasury.gov, or the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. All information will be kept strictly confidential.
