Moldovan law enforcers detain criminal group suspected of money laundering, tax dodging

Chisinau, 14 February /MOLDPRES/ - The Prosecutor General’s Office (PG) and the Security and Intelligence Service (SIS) have annihilated a criminal ring suspected of money laundering and tax dodging, by which damages worth millions of lei were inflicted to the state.     

The deputy prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office for Fighting Organized Crime and Special Causes (PCCOCS), Valeriu Bodean, told a today’s news conference that, on 10 February, law enforcers had detained four persons members of a criminal group, which was acting illegally and providing gambling services online. “It is about the manager of the economic entity, staff manager and the hall manager. Warrants of preventive arrest have been already issued against three of them and the court is to give its ruling in case of one suspect,” Bodean said.   

For his part, a PCCOCS case prosecutor, Ion Negurita, noted that the economic entity was registered as a telephony centre; yet, in reality, it worked as an online gambling room, and access to the site of the gambling could be made only from abroad. “The site had a high degree of security and if someone was trying to access it from another IP address of Moldova, the applicant was re-directed to another site. The economic entity has been working non-stop since the autumn of 2013 and had about 80 employees working in three shifts. Their salaries were paid unofficially (9,000 lei), by avoiding the payment of taxes,” Negurita said.       

Law enforcers carried out ten searches in the Chisinau city area, including at the homes of the defendants, where they discovered about 200,000 lei, held to pay the salaries of the unofficial employees, 12 tables for gambling, playing cards, counters, video cameras, monitors, etc. Preliminary estimations by inquirers show that the economic entity would have caused damages worth over five million lei  annually.  

Law enforcers continue the investigation, in order to establish the degree of guilt and involvement of each member of the criminal group. They run the risk of being sentenced to up to ten years of imprisonment.

(Reporter P. Beregoi, editor M. Jantovan)