Investigation
A cut of every tank: drivers describe payments at line posts
Six sergeants were convicted last year of taking bribes at the main checkpoint. Truck drivers and two former officers say the payments at the line posts go higher.
From the Irad Times of 14 June 2024.
In November the Talas District Court convicted six Gendarmerie sergeants of taking bribes to pass fuel tankers through the main Qara-Chik checkpoint. No officer above the rank of sergeant was charged, and the Gendarmerie cited the case as evidence of its internal discipline.
Truck drivers who carry diesel into the Autonomous Tribal Regions describe a different arrangement. Over two months the Times interviewed fourteen drivers and two former Gendarmerie officers who served at line posts between 2019 and 2023. They say that at some of the smaller posts on the line, the commanders, not the sergeants, decide which tankers pass, and take a share of each load in cash or in diesel.
“One tank in ten”
“At the big checkpoint you pay the sergeant, because there are cameras and the sergeant takes the risk,” said a driver from Kara-Buura who has carried fuel across the line for eight years. “At the small posts you pay the commander. One tank in ten, or the money for it.” Four other drivers named the same three posts.
One of the former officers, who left the Gendarmerie in 2022, said the arrangement was “known to everyone who served on the line”. He said a share of the money went to officers above the post commanders, but would not name them. The Times has not been able to confirm that.
“Slander”
The Gendarmerie called the report “slander” and said that any officer found taking money “will be dealt with as the six sergeants were”. It said diesel smuggling was “carried out by criminal groups in the tribal regions”.
No inquiry has been opened.
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