Law enforcement in Kazakhstan is looking for a prominent blogger who has been accused of making a lot of cryptocurrency by illegally advertising online gambling in the Central Asian nation.
Known as Qaisar Qamza on social media, the man has already had at least some of his coin wealth seized by the government in Astana, revealed a statement by the country’s main financial watchdog.
Kazakh blogger loses Tether paid for promoting online casinos
A famous blogger from Kazakhstan is now wanted internationally on allegations of promoting illegal gambling on the Internet, his homeland’s Financial Monitoring Agency (AFM) announced.
In the past five years, the 30-year-old Kaisar Kamza Bakytzhanuly was active under the handle “qais_arr” on Instagram, where he had 2.4 million subscribers, and administered a closed Telegram channel with 368,000 members. He also had a TikTok account and a YouTube channel.
Using his social media accounts, he regularly uploaded videos and other commercial materials directly linking to a website for online betting. He also offered followers his personal promo code, which provided special bonuses to users, the agency said.
In its notice posted on Thursday, which was quoted by the Russian business news portal RBC and local media, the AFM detailed further:
“Kamza, K.B. advertised the online platform aimed at attracting citizens to participate in gambling, which allowed him to earn income in the form of rewards and percentages.”
The blogger received remuneration for his services in the U.S.-dollar pegged stablecoin Tether. Assets amounting to 182,700 USDT have been seized based on a court order, the regulator also noted.
“To conceal his illegal income, the suspect used a crypto wallet, which received payments from the organizers of the online casino,” the authority stated, asking for any information about his whereabouts that could lead to his detention.
Screenshot of Qaisar Qamza’s Instagram profile. Source: Instagram
Kazakhstan seizes millions in cryptocurrency in criminal investigations
While working to liberalize and regulate crypto transactions in its economy, the government of Kazakhstan has been cracking down on crypto-related crime.
In November, the interior ministry revealed it had registered over 1,000 criminal cases linked to operations with cryptocurrencies in the past couple of years.
In September 2025, the country seized $10 million worth of digital assets as part of an investigation into a Ponzi scheme that lured investors from across the former Soviet space.
At the end of the month, Kazakhstan disrupted a $224 million crypto laundering service called RAKS, which was quite popular on the dark web. The AFM blocked dozens of its wallets, freezing 9.7 million Tether (USDT).
In 2025, the authorities in Astana restricted access to a total of more than 1,100 illegal crypto trading websites, the agency announced in January, as reported by Cryptopolitan this week.
The news came after last October, the watchdog said it had busted almost 130 unlicensed crypto exchanges, claiming to have confiscated almost $17 million in virtual currencies from their operators.
It’s unclear what the government intends to do with all that digital cash. However, the National Bank of Kazakhstan unveiled in November that it’s going to build a national cryptocurrency reserve.
The latter should be established in the first half of 2026 and will hold the equivalent of up to $1 billion in digital coins. The monetary authority has already earmarked $300 million for the purchase.