Using a novel Justice Department procedure, a team from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld helped the Kyrgyz Republic secure repatriation of stolen assets.

It's a feel-good ending to a complicated story stemming from corruption in the Central Asian nation.

The Kyrgyz Republic's prior leader Kurmanbek Bakiyev and his son Maxim Bakiyev allegedly stole $130 million from state authorities and banking institutions.

Most of that is untraceable, but Akin litigation partner Paul Butler, consultant Toby Gati, retired partner Larry Tannenbaum and Russia/Eurasia analyst Dariya Fadeeva worked with the republic's new presidential administration and DOJ's Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative to get up to $6 million back.

It might not sound like much, but it will go far in the former Soviet republic, earmarked for uses such as buying basic medical equipment like X-ray machines for regional hospitals and building water supply facilities to expand access to clean drinking water. So far, $4.5 million has been returned.

The money comes via the criminal prosecution of Eugene Gourevitch for insider trading in the Eastern District of New York.

Bloomberg describes Gourevitch as a “Berkeley-educated finance whiz” who was “an accomplice or eyewitness to widespread looting and corporate bribery” during the Bakiyev regime.

The $6 million to be repatriated is money that Gourevitch allegedly stole from Maxim Bakiyev, who allegedly embezzled it from state funds.

“It's a complicated set of facts,” Butler acknowledged in an interview.

When the Kyrgyz Republic retained Akin to go after the money, it was late in the Gourevitch prosecution and the judge declined to award it to the nation.

But the Akin team filed an obscure request with the Justice Department known as a remission petition.

“It was a very long, laborious process,” Butler said, but he's glad the money is now being returned. “It's a poor country, and it really did get robbed blind.”