A tenth-grader in Tajikistan’s capital has been detained after successfully soliciting a $50,000 bribe by impersonating the son of President Emomali Rahmon, Asia-Plus reports.

 

Last August, according to the state anti-corruption agency, Khushdil Kurbonov and a relative took $50,000 from a man in exchange for promising him 0.3 hectares of land just outside the capital.

 

Kurbonov then called a local official in charge of the land and said he was Somoni Emomali (sometimes Somon), the president’s younger son, and instructed him to hand over the deed. The official did not believe Kurbonov.

 

Kurbonov attends the Dushanbe International School, according to Asia-Plus. In 2012 Tajik media reported that Somoni was attending the Dushanbe International School; he would now also be in the 10th grade.

 

The organization investigating the case, officially known as the Agency for State Financial Control and Combating Corruption, is headed by another of the president’s nine children, Rustam Emomali. Rustam became head of the agency in March. His appointment (by his father) increased long-standing concerns that official corruption investigations will steer far and wide of the long-ruling first family.

 

That someone thought he could pull this off by posing as the president’s son speaks volumes about how business works – and the first family is viewed – in Tajikistan, a country that ranks 152 out of 175 on Transparency International’s most recent Corruption Perceptions Index.