Seven persons detained within searches by Moldovan Anticorruption Centre

Chisinau, 26 July /MOLDPRES/ - Seven persons, among whom employees of the Economics and Infrastructure Ministry and National Road Transport Agency (ANTA), today were detained following searches made by anticorruption officers and prosecutors. The civil servants are suspected of organizing a scheme of promoting their own transport companies by exerting pressures on operators of national and international routes.    

According to the National Anticorruption Centre (CNA), among the people detained, there are five employees of ANTA (one head of department, two deputy heads and two inspectors), one consultant of the Economics and Infrastructure Ministry, as well as managers of a company specialized in the carriage of passengers.   

According to prosecutors, ANTA employees, in complicity with persons of the Economics and Infrastructure Ministry, were managing more routes of carrying passengers through interposed persons. To make them place on market, they would have systematically exerted pressures on drivers and economic agents who have already worked in the sector, extorting monthly different sums of money as ‘protection taxes’, so as their authorizations is not withdrawn or they are not subjected to controls. In other cases, the suspects would have persuaded some economic agents, via threats, to give up for good the work in the field of passengers transport or to pay large sums of money to be allowed to work in continuation.  

According to data, to continue work, the manager of a company would have been obliged to pay 20,000 euros, while the others were paying to ANTA by 9,000 lei monthly, in order not to be subjected to verifications.

Also, other members of the group will be escorted to CNA for additional hearings, among whom interposed people, through which officials were managing more routes of road transport.  

CNA and prosecutors opened more criminal files for passive corruption and abuse of power, committed by decision-makers. If found guilty, the suspects run the risk of being sentenced up to 10 years of imprisonment with fine worth up to 400,000 lei and deprivation of the right to hold public offices up to ten years.

After the searches had started, Economics and Infrastructure Minister Chiril Gaburici asked ANTA decision-makers to ensure the functioning of the institution, so that citizens and carriers do not suffer in the wake of the detention of inspectors of the National Road Transport Agency.   

(Reporter A. Ciobanu, editor A. Raileanu)