U.S. court released Kazakhstan citizen accused of money laundering

Kazakhstan citizen Aleksey Li, arrested in the United States for money laundering, has been released, his lawyer Aleksey Tarassov told Tengrinews.kz. Aleksey Li is one of Kazakhstan citizens involved in cracking the bank account. According to the lawyer, Li’s sentence was announced on Friday, June 29, in Houston. “In the beginning the court wanted to sentence him to 8 to 14 months in prison, but we managed to reduce the prison term. In the end the court decided that the period of Li's imprisonment during the investigation, 3 months, was enough for him,” Tarassov said. “Li fully admitted his guilt,” the lawyer said adding that his client would be deported to Kazakhstan. “We have already contacted Kazakhstan embassy to the U.S. and this issue is being resolved.” Tarassov said that the case of the second accused, another Kazakhstan citizen, is still in process. Tarassov does not representing him in court. Kazakhstan citizen spent 3 months in prison from December 2011 to March 2012. According to the investigation, Li’s case was as follows: someone asked him to provide his bank account details promising him good money from stocks. However, Li did not get any money, while the criminal (who asked him for the bank details) got his hands on $400 thousand wiring them through Li's account. The Kazakhstan citizen was suspected of obtaining the money illegally. It turned out that the criminals cracked an account of some company and transferred the money to Aleksey Li. He was accused of aiding to fraud. By Roza Yessenkulova