Customs officers, policemen discover more vehicles with exceeded term of stay in Moldova

Chisinau, 19 March /MOLDPRES/ - Eight touring cars registered abroad, with exceeded term of stay in Moldova, were discovered and arrested within a comprehensive operation, held by mobile teams of Customs Service, jointly with officers of the National Patrol Inspectorate (INP), today. The drivers were fined and obliged to take their cars out of the country.   

Under the legal provisions, the maximum term of stay of a vehicle with foreign registration numbers in Moldova is 180 days in a time interval of 12 consecutive months. Customs Service’s data shows that, in the first two months of this year alone, 859 notifications have been recorded on the violation of the allowed maximum term and the number of vehicles concerned is even higher.   

Only the touring cars introduced in Moldova by private people with residence abroad and who have driver’s licence in the country where they have their residence can stay for a period longer than 180 days. Nevertheless, after this term expires, the drivers of the concerned touring cars must pay the road tax of 180 euros for each consecutive period of 180 days of the vehicle’s stay in Moldova, but which should not exceed a period of 3 years upon the date of its placement in the temporary admission regime.

The infringement of the concerned terms entails a fine of up to 4,500 lei, concomitantly with the compulsoriness of taking the car out of Moldova.   

At the same time, the Customs Service reiterated the warning to the citizens not to accept the crossing of the border at the wheel of a vehicle of another person, as they run the risk of becoming victims of a fraud scheme. Thus, people who accept to bring to Moldova, based on a proxy, vehicles which, in reality, belong to other persons, run the risk of being sanctioned with fines of up to 4,500 lei or even pay its equivalent value, if the vehicle was disassembled. At the same time, they can no longer enter with another car, for reasons that one vehicle is already registered for their name.   

On 18 March, law-enforcers detained six persons, among whom customs employees, who were erasing from database vehicles with foreign registration numbers against sums of money.