The family was exposed in previous investigations for dominating Kyrgyz trade routes with the help of corrupt officials. But that hasn’t stopped them from expanding into Uzbekistan.
The Epicenter of Uzbek Trade
In Uzbekistan’s trading sector, there is no bigger prize than the Abu Sahiy market. Its endless traders’ rows{:target=_blank”} sprawl along the capital’s ring road, selling every imaginable good, from clothes to home electronics. The market is so full of Chinese imports that local comedians call it the “capital of China.” For the convenience of its shoppers, it has food stalls, multi-story parking garages, and even its own mosque.
The origins of Abu Sahiy are murky, but for years, it was owned by Timur Tillayev, the jet-setting son-in-law of Uzbekistan’s long-time president, Islam Karimov.
Tillayev allegedly extracted millions from import flows to the market, his profits reportedly fuelled by unofficial tax and customs preferences that enabled him to undersell the competition.
He has always denied these allegations, and his lawyer continues to deny them today. But, as revealed in a series of investigations published by OCCRP and partners several years ago, one of the market’s main suppliers during those years was Khabibula Abdukadyr.
With the help of corrupt customs officials in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, Abdukadyr and his brothers made a fortune allegedly selling falsely labeled and under-declared Chinese goods at Abu Sahiy. The family employed a self-confessed money launderer — later shot dead in Istanbul — who said he used a variety of illicit schemes to send their profits to bank accounts across the world.
The arrangement persisted for years. Both Tillayev and Abdukadyr got rich, and Abu Sahiy kept growing. But in a country like Uzbekistan, where so much depends on the graces of those at the top, things can change quickly. And for a savvy man like Abdukadyr, change can represent an even greater opportunity.
In 2016, President Karimov died and his prime minister, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, took power. Uzbekistan’s new leader portrayed himself as a reformer who would open the country to the world, end human rights abuses, and clean up corruption. It was little surprise that Tillayev, a prominent member of the former ruling family, appeared in his crosshairs.
Prosecutors and tax and customs officials launched a series of inspections against the previously untouchable Abu Sahiy market. Business took a hit, with cargo operations halting for weeks. Finally, at the end of 2017, Tillyaev was out, selling his stake in the market to new owners. He is not known to have set foot in the country since then.
The government portrayed Abu Sahiy’s change of ownership as a major shakeup. Within a few weeks, the office of Mirziyoyev himself was already promoting the market’s newfound respectability, praising its skyrocketing tax payments.
Several months later, a glowing report on state television extolled the unnamed “foreign investors with international experience” who now owned Abu Sahiy. The program aired interviews with happy shoppers who said prices had decreased and traders who praised lower rent payments.
As it turns out, the “foreign investors” who took over Abu Sahiy are the Abdukadyrs. Tillayev’s lawyer confirmed in an email to reporters that his client sold the market to Khabibula Abdukadyr in December 2017. Corporate documents show that, after Tillayev’s departure, Abu Sahiy was first held by the Abdukadyr family’s German companies and then transferred to an apparent proxy: A Turkish company owned by a woman in her mid-20s who has no other known businesses.
One source on the inside — a man who works for an Abdukadyr company — was able to offer the most detail, though it could not be independently corroborated.
“The shares of Abu Sahiy belong to Hoji aka [a respectful term for Abdukadyr], but he is in partnership with O[tabek] U[marov],” he said.
The worker described seeing a cash counting machine and piles of U.S. banknotes in the office of Abu Sahiy’s director, which he alleged were later delivered to Umarov as his share of the profits.
As a key link between Abdukadyr and Umarov, he pointed to another member of the presidential family: Mirziyoyev’s sister’s son-in-law, Najim Abdujabarrov. “He is a representative of the family,” the worker said, explaining that Abdujabarrov spends most of the week in the offices of Baraka Holding, one of the Abdukadyrs’ key trading companies. “He is in-between Hoji [Abdukadyr] and the sons-in-law.”
In another case, the Abdukadyr family partnered with a member of the presidential family directly. A logistics center they co-owned with a son of President Mirziyoyev’s cousin was instructed by the customs service to process all international courier shipments, driving massive business to the facility (see box for details).
‘Instructions from the Government’
The Uzbek government has also included the Abdukadyr family in a new plan to develop a more efficient trade route between Uzbekistan and China.
In 2017, Uzbekistan’s President Mirziyoyev signed agreements with both China and Kyrgyzstan to develop a modern new trade route that would benefit all three countries.
When the Kyrgyz president traveled to Tashkent on an official visit that December, Khabibula Abdukadyr came as a member of the Kyrgyz delegation. The very next month, the family entered into official partnership with the Uzbek government: One of their Chinese companies joined a majority state-owned firm, O’rta Osiyo Trans, to establish a joint venture with the goal of “carrying out instructions from the government” — a reference to developing the new trade route.
The state was apparently determined to have the Abdukadyrs as partners, outvoting a Turkish minority shareholder of O’rta Osiyo Trans who opposed the arrangement.
The new joint venture, Silk Road International, received an infusion of cash from the Abdukadyr side and a fleet of truck trailers from the state side. In September 2018, the Uzbek trade ministry proudly announced that the company had successfully established the new route, its trucks plying the roads between China and Uzbekistan carrying food, crops, construction materials, and consumer goods.
In 2020, Khabibula Abdukadyr acquired the Turkish shareholder’s minority stake in O’rta Osiyo Trans, becoming a direct partner of the Uzbek state.
Between this acquisition, the Abdukadyrs’ stake in Silk Road International, and their ownership of a leading Kyrgyz trucking company called Tarim Trans, the Abdukadyrs appear to have established a dominant position supplying Chinese goods to Uzbekistan.
When reporters called representatives of over two dozen competing transportation companies, a majority said they could not deliver cargo from China to Uzbekistan by road. Those that have attempted to do so complained of excessive wait times and uncertainty as to whether the cargo would arrive at all. “We are afraid to use this route,” one said, suggesting that his company was asked to pay a bribe to get its cargo through. Most of the Abdukadyrs’ competitors were using an alternative route not dominated by the family: sending the goods by rail through neighboring Kazakhstan.
In addition to physically carrying goods, the Abdukadyrs’ Uzbek trading company, Baraka Holding, is used by traders around the country as an intermediary when ordering and importing goods from abroad.
The company handles all the import procedures and customs paperwork itself, enabling its customers to purchase their imported goods from a “domestic” supplier.
This is an arrangement that Baraka’s competitors apparently can’t match. RFE/RL’s Uzbek service has received a number of anonymous messages from traders and cargo company owners complaining that using Baraka Holding was essentially their only option.
“Any merchant who imports anything from abroad must ship goods only via Abu Sahiy/Baraka logistics,” one trader wrote. “Otherwise they will not be able to have them cleared at the customs office.”
According to Uzbek government data, in 2022 Baraka Holding was the country’s third-largest trading company by turnover, with income of over $200 million. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
‘I Don’t Think There Were Any Competitors’
Although they were once accused of bribing a senior customs official in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, the Abdukadyr family is now in a formal partnership with Uzbekistan’s customs agency.
In January 2019, Mirziyoyev’s government invited private companies to submit bids to build four new customs terminals on the country’s borders.