Uzbekistan puts former migration official on Interpol Red Notice

Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) — A former head of a department at Uzbekistan’s Agency for External Labor Migration, Azizbek Toshtemirov, has been placed on an international wanted list and added to Interpol’s Red Notice database on fraud charges, according to information published on the organization’s official website.

Publicly available data indicates that Toshtemirov was born on May 15, 1990, in the Andijan region and is 35 years old. He is accused of fraud. The press service of the migration agency stated that he previously headed the agency’s representative office in the Republic of Korea and was dismissed in March 2025 following the identification of violations.

The agency clarified that the structure where he worked was formerly known as the Agency for External Labor Migration and was reorganized into the Migration Agency under the Cabinet of Ministers in October 2024.

The international search is linked to an investigation into a large-scale corruption scheme involving the sending of Uzbek citizens to work in South Korea. Earlier, the Department for Combating Economic Crimes under the General Prosecutor’s Office reported the exposure of an organized group that included former officials of the migration agency and representatives of private recruitment structures.

According to investigators, $263,500 was illegally obtained from 35 citizens, with additional payments collected beyond official fees ranging from $7,000 to $12,000 per candidate. Overall case materials cite tens of millions of dollars in alleged illicit funds and hundreds of affected citizens whose complaints are still under review.

In some parts of the investigation, cases involving hundreds and up to one thousand citizens are mentioned, while the total alleged damage is preliminarily estimated at tens of millions of dollars.

Authorities also noted that an Interpol Red Notice is not an arrest warrant but an international request to locate and potentially detain an individual pending extradition proceedings.

Earlier reports in the public domain also mentioned possible irregularities in EPS-Topik examinations for employment in South Korea, where Toshtemirov’s name was referenced in connection with alleged procedural violations.