Four persons, including an official from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, were detained by prosecutors and anticorruption officers today, suspected of organizing a money extortion scheme to speed up the authentication of documents.

According to the spokesperson of the National Anticorruption Centre (CNA), Angela Starinschi, the detentions took place after a series of searches carried out by CNA officers at the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research and at the offices of two public notaries.

According to the source, the four suspects are part of a group involving officials from the Ministry of Justice, notaries and representatives of translation offices. According to the criminal investigation materials, the intermediaries, who were working under the shelter of translation offices, racked up people who needed the authentication of the study papers, and proposed to speed up the procedure, which legally lasted up to 30 days. For their services, which consisted in delivering the documents in a few hours or days, they claimed €50 per document, and the amounts claimed for the whole set of acts varied between €250 – €1500.

The intermediaries were acting on behalf of the applicant, by proxy, preparing the pack of documents, and then, together with the employees of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Justice, organized the authentication and apostille of the documents.

As a result of searches at home places, offices, and cars of those accused, the law enforcement officials found proxies on behalf of third parties and telephones. The criminal follow-up actions took place in two offices of the Ministry of Education, in the offices of two employees of the Ministry of Justice, two notaries and areoffice in Chisinau.

For objectively documenting the case, several people are to be quoted for hearings at the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office. At present, prosecutors are carrying out the criminal investigation for committing trafficking of influence and passive corruption. If they are found guilty, the four people risk up to 10 years in prison.

22 August 2017

Moldpres

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