A criminal case has been opened against Fazlidinkhon Mekhmonov, chief of Demokrat.uz online media outlet/blogger Aziz Goipnazarov, the Tashkent Police Department’s press service said.
He is facing the Extortion on an especially large-scale charge of the Criminal Code.
Reportedly, the suspect allegedly prepared and posted a video discrediting the car dealership in Sergeli district.
Then, Mekhmonov demanded $50,000 from the owner in exchange for removing the video story from social media and not publishing another video in his media resources.
On January 29, Mekhmonov received $3,000 from the victim, and later, on February 10, when he was receiving $17,000, he was arrested red-handedly.
The Police Department urged the public who may have been harmed by such actions to call 102.
The website Demokrat.uz was registered on October 1, 2022. Its latest news was posted on January 31. The outlet has 608 subscribers on YouTube, 350,000 on Instagram, and approximately 8,300 on Telegram.
Earlier in mid-January, workers of Taftish.uz news publication, including its director, were arrested in Tashkent. They are suspected of extortion, fraud, slander, and dissemination of false information.
