Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Complaints related to overpricing of face masks are daily sent to the helpline and to the Call Center of the State Tax Committee of Uzbekistan (STC). In total, STC received over 2,500 complaints about inflated prices for masks, antiseptics and medical devices during the quarantine period.

Employees of tax authorities promptly respond to citizens’ appeals, carry out control and preventive measures, during which facts of illegal business activities related to speculation are often revealed.

Unfortunately, there are many cases when resellers without any documents buy masks from suppliers in large quantities and resell them to the population at an inflated price. This product, as a rule, is stored in inappropriate conditions and is sold at unreasonably high prices.

Thus, during the quarantine period, the tax authorities identified 81 cases of illegal sale of medical masks by unscrupulous entrepreneurs. In total, 216,690 face masks were seized during the control and preventive measures.

The vast majority of facts were revealed in the city of Tashkent (49), followed by Namangan (10), Andijan (7) and Ferghana (5).

All masks seized were handed over to the Ministry of Health for suitability assessment