Five heads of forest districts detained in file on illegal deforestation in Moldova

Chisinau, 23 December /MOLDPRES/ - Prosecutors of the Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Causes (PCCOCS), jointly with officers of the National Investigations Inspectorate (INI) of the Police, have detained five persons following 60 searches made in a file on illegal deforestation, which caused the state damages worth one million lei.    

According to PCCOCS, the deeds took place in the districts of Leova, Straseni, Ialoveni, Orhei in September-December 2022, with the involvement of forestry enterprises. Those five detained people – heads of forest districts and woodmen – have ages between 34 and 63 years and acted jointly with employees with positions of engineers, masters, accountants and woodmen at the enterprises concerned. Thus, to create an appearance of legality, false accounting documents were issued in favour of crime ring members, and primary materials with incorrect data were compiled. Moreover, the illegal deforestations were taking place through exceeding the norms contained in the authorizations on general deforestations, issued by the Moldsilva Forestry Agency.     

Subsequently, the wood meant for heating was sold preponderantly to economic agents at a price of 1,000-1,200 lei per one cubic metre. The illegal profit got was afterwards divided with employees of the enterprises concerned. During searches, carried out with the support of employees of the Police Criminal Prosecution General Department and Fulger, 800,000 lei was raised, which would be a part of the illegal profit gained.  

Photo: Police