Deputies of the Kurultai are concerned about the involvement of young people in drug-related crimes and money muling. Young people are lured by promises of quick earnings and their bank accounts are used for illegal operations. In the first nine months of 2026, 59 minors were convicted in Kazakhstan in drug-related criminal cases. For the whole of 2025, there were 67 such verdicts.

These figures were cited by Didarbek Dildabek, a member of the "Adilet" party faction, in his parliamentary inquiry addressed to the Prosecutor General, the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Minister of Science and Higher Education, the Minister of Education, and the Chairman of the Agency for Financial Monitoring.

Didarbek Dildabek pointed to the growing risks of young people being drawn into illicit drug trafficking and money laundering.

According to data from the Committee on Legal Statistics of the Prosecutor General's Office, cited by the deputy, in 2025 Kazakhstan registered 8,280 drug-related offenses, 4,684 people were held criminally liable, and 67 minors were convicted. In the first nine months of 2026, 7,464 such offenses were registered, 3,282 people were held liable, and 59 minors were convicted.

As the author of the inquiry notes, these data indicate the need to strengthen preventive work and protect children and adolescents from being drawn into illicit drug trafficking.

The deputy links a separate problem to money muling – the transfer of bank accounts and other payment instruments for conducting illegal operations.

According to legal statistics as of the beginning of June 2026, out of 214 persons who were suspects in completed money muling proceedings, 159 were between the ages of 18 and 29. At the same time, 140 people were unemployed at the time of the offense.

The deputy believes that criminal prosecution measures alone are insufficient to solve the problem.

– Assessing the work of law enforcement agencies, we note that it is impossible to solve the problem only through criminal prosecution. Measures of financial control, crime prevention, and social support for young people must be interconnected. However, interagency coordination is insufficient, – he noted.

According to data from the Agency for Financial Monitoring dated July 8, 2026, also cited by the author of the inquiry, since the beginning of the year the activities of 33 money muling groups have been suppressed. Illegal financial operations totaling over 112 billion tenge were conducted through their bank accounts.

– At the beginning of the school year, the involvement of students for monetary reward in opening bank accounts and transferring them to other persons for use is alarming. Young people, counting on easy earnings and "renting out" their account, do not always fully realize the risk of its use for illegal money circulation and their own responsibility, – emphasized Didarbek Dildabek.

According to the deputy, preventive work in educational institutions also requires changes. He proposes that during the first 15 days of the school year, explanations be provided to first-year students about the risks of participating in drug-related crimes and transferring bank accounts to other persons. At the same time, it is necessary to establish ongoing interaction between law enforcement agencies and educational institution staff and psychologists.

– There are also gaps in preventive work in educational institutions. Explanatory work with first-year students and interaction between law enforcement agencies and staff responsible for educational work and psychologists have not been established systematically. It is necessary to update approaches to conveying information to young people in a language they understand. When drugs are distributed through messengers and QR codes, limiting prevention to removing graffiti is not enough, – emphasized the deputy.

Among his proposals are additional measures to protect bank cards and accounts of young people. In particular, Didarbek Dildabek proposes considering the possibility of additional biometric confirmation of interpersonal transfers exceeding 50,000 tenge for citizens aged 14 to 22.

According to him, it is also necessary to establish operational information exchange between banks, law enforcement agencies, and educational institutions in order to identify earlier cases of students being involved in transferring accounts for reward and suspicious operations.

Along with this, the inquiry also raised the issue of the responsibility of banks that fail to fulfill their relevant obligations.

Another proposal relates to the "Digital Family Map." Didarbek Dildabek believes that this tool can be used to identify the needs of socially vulnerable young people and provide targeted assistance. In particular, he proposes considering the possibility of providing needy college students with free meals and clothing vouchers, as well as organizing short-term jobs with daily pay on the basis of utility enterprises in accordance with labor legislation.

The deputy also recommends strengthening ongoing coordination between law enforcement agencies and state bodies in the spheres of finance, digitalization, labor, and education. In his opinion, it is necessary to define the tasks of each body, the procedure for information exchange, deadlines for implementation, and common performance indicators.

– Providing young people with the opportunity to earn a legal income and timely social support is an important condition for protecting young people from being drawn into a criminal environment, – noted Didarbek Dildabek.

 

Linarа SAKTAGANOVA
Astana