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Uzbekistan’s state-owned Almalyk Mining Metallurgical Complex has issued a public defence of more than $200 million in procurement contracts awarded to foreign companies, after a joint investigation by OCCRP and Finance Uncovered found those companies included firms with proxy owners, falsified financial filings, and contracts bearing the electronic signatures of people who say they never signed them.
AMMC, widely regarded as a cornerstone of the Uzbek economy, said in a statement on Wednesday that all cited tenders were awarded to the lowest bidder through the government’s automated procurement system and that winning suppliers delivered goods in full, on time, and to the required quality standards. The company said it had conducted an internal probe. It did not address the majority of the investigation’s specific findings.
Dormant on Paper, Active in Contracts
The investigation identified two U.K.-registered companies — Lemixton Solutions Ltd and Golders Business Ltd — that collectively received more than $35 million in AMMC tenders and sent dozens of shipments of goods to the complex. During the same period, both firms filed accounts with British authorities declaring they were dormant. A representative for the two companies confirmed that a single individual controlled both — yet the firms competed against each other for the same AMMC tenders, a pattern the investigation describes as indicative of hidden common control.
Contracts worth more than $7 million awarded to the two firms carry the electronic signatures of accounting associates who deny having signed the documents. One of those individuals has since reported the matter to British authorities. AMMC did not respond to questions about those specific contracts before publishing its statement.
A Pattern Across Borders
Investigators identified similar arrangements in Georgia, where companies that had won tens of millions of dollars in AMMC tenders were acquired for a nominal sum by a South Korean-based medical coordinator of Uzbek origin who had no apparent background in the mining industry. Like their U.K. counterparts, the Georgian firms showed no economic activity in their financial filings during the period in which they were awarded the contracts.
The Uzbek, Colombian, and Georgian individuals identified in the investigation either declined to comment or did not respond to inquiries.
AMMC’s statement leaves unaddressed the central questions raised by the investigation: how firms that declared themselves dormant could fulfil large industrial supply contracts, why competing bidders were under common control, and how electronic signatures came to appear on contracts without the knowledge of the people named. The company’s insistence that procurement rules were followed does not engage with whether those rules were sufficient to detect the arrangements described.