Officers of the National Anticorruption Center, anticorruption prosecutors and employees of the Border Police’s Internal Security Division are carrying out searches in Ialoveni town and a number of settlements from southern Moldova within a corruption and ethyl alcohol smuggling case.
Contacted by IPN, prosecutor Eduard Harunjen, of the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, said the searches are performed at the homes of persons suspected of smuggling and of police officers involved in this scheme and at the carriers.
Seventeen searches have been carried out so far today in Ialoveni, Cahul, Comrat, Taraclia, at the border picket unit in Valea Perjei village and at the border police section in Ceadar-Lunga.
Three border police employees and the head of the Ceadar-Lunga Patrolling Inspectorate are investigated in this case. A decision maker of the Border Police is suspected of being bribed with a car for taking part in the smuggling of tonnes of ethyl alcohol.
So far there were found and sealed up over 20 tonnes of ethyl alcohol, but the prosecutor does not exclude that the quantities will grow when the searches are finished. The alcohol was found in stores located not far from the border area with Ukraine.
The damage caused to the state is to be assessed. According to Eduard Harujen, if the ethyl alcohol had been exported legally, the state would have collected over 100 lei in excises and other taxes from each liter of ethyl alcohol.
