Rossiiskaya Gazeta reports with references to Kyrgyz media outlets that the Akayevs are urgently selling their worldly goods. There is more to them than an old car and a small flat in Bishkek Askar Akayev regularly mentioned in his income declaration. The lists of the Akayevs' assets are suspected to include numerous companies, factories, resorts on Lake Issyk-Kul, the largest media holding in the country, oil and gas companies, and so on.

Whatever cannot be sold has to be wrecked and made useless to others - this apparently is the motto of the former owners. It turned out yesterday that all finances and books of Vecherny Bishkek newspaper and advertisement agency Airek belonging to the president's son-in-law Adil Toigonbayev had disappeared without a trace two days before Askar Akayev's escape from the country. Only colossal debts were left. Rossiiskaya Gazeta reports that the other companies that belonged to the Akayevs are crippled in the same manner and left in a similar condition. Kyrgyz newspapers maintain that BiTel, the largest provider of cell communications in the country controlled by the president's son Aidar Akayev, was put up for sale on his order. The deal was arranged in haste. It was to take place in the nearest future.

According to Vedomosti, Russian Alpha-Group that had planned to buy BiTel interfered to prevent its sale. The court arrested BiTel shares on the request from Fellowes, a company affiliated with Alpha-Group. Fellowes is trying to force BiTel owners to sell the company to it.

BiTel, the only provider of cell communications in Kyrgyzstan, has almost 300,000 customers and accounts for nearly 90% of the national market, according to ACM-Consulting. The company was founded in 1997 by Kyrgyz Mobil Tel Ltd, Flaxendale Ltd, and George Resources Ltd (all of them registered on the Isle of Man). Analysts evaluate its cost at $150-200 million.

© Translated by Ferghana.Ru