Four Moldovan customs officers and another three persons were arrested for smuggling a considerable amount of fermented tobacco. According to investigators, the group helped dozens of trucks with fermented tobacco to cross the border with Romania in 2007-2011. The trucks then went to EU countries. Twenty more Moldovans were involved in the scheme, but they haven’t been yet identified, IPN reports.
In a news conference on March 20, Vitalie Briceag, head of the National Investigations Inspectorate’s Economic Frauds Division, said that these persons imported fermented tobacco from the CIS states into Moldova, where they changed the code of the merchandise so as to diminish the goods’ value. The tobacco was exported with false documents. In the end, the fermented tobacco, which was ready for making cigarettes, reached the EU again with a diminished price and under another customs code and name.
Prosecutor Artur Sircu, of the Prosecutor General’s Office, said that 48 trucks with about 500,000 kilograms of fermented tobacco crossed the border this way. An estimated €2.5 million was earned illegally from this business over the years.
On March 19, the criminal prosecution group carried out 18 inspections at suspects’ homes, head offices of companies and at offices of the customs employees suspected of complicity. There were arrested four employees of the Customs Service and three employees of companies.
The culprits face up to 10 years in jail.
