Authorities in Uzbekistan have opened a criminal probe into a man who impersonated the country's strongman on Facebook and solicited money for favours from his unsuspecting countrymen. The interior ministry said a 39-year-old resident of a small town outside the capital Tashkent set up a fake Facebook account in the name of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and offered Uzbeks help in everything from securing housing to obtaining bank loans. He demanded between 50,000 soms ($5) to 1.5 million soms ($143) for his services, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday, adding that the alleged imposter described himself as "the head of the presidential administration" in his negotiations with "gullible" victims. A spokeswoman for the investigators, Oksana Khakimova, told AFP the suspect had not been taken into custody yet and the probe was ongoing. His phone was seized as evidence during a raid in the town of Chirchik in early February and a probe into fraud was launched, the interior ministry said. President Mirziyoyev took power after the death of Uzbekistan's long-reigning hardliner Islam Karimov in 2016. He has since won plaudits for trimming many of his predecessor's authoritarian excesses. sk-rco-as/jbr/bp