Three employees of the Ministry of the Interior holding responsible positions and the employee of a Chisinau filling station were arrested on suspicion that they caused damage of about 200,000 lei a month to the Ministry, during almost half a year, by a scheme used to steal money through cards for fueling up police cars.
Minister of the Interior Oleg Balan told a news conference that the arrested persons include the deputy head of the Supply and Logistics Service of the General Police Inspectorate, a section head of the Finance Division of the National Patrolling Inspectorate, the chief mechanic-engineer of the National Patrolling Inspectorate, who distributed the cards, and a filling station operator. The Ministry’s employees transmitted the cards to operators of filing stations who fueled up the vehicles of ordinary clients with them, while the cash paid by the latter was collected by those who designed the scheme.
It was established that the scheme started to be used last October. There were found documents with double-entry bookkeeping. This gave reasons to believe that the suspects committed illegalities also when the police cars were fuelled up based on tickets.
The police carried out nine searches, including at offices of the General Police Inspectorate, where they found money and cards of other subdivisions, such as the Chisinau Police Division and the Ciocana Police Inspectorate. The size of the damage caused to the Ministry is yet to be determined.
The suspects face a fine of 10,000 to 20,000 lei or two to six years in jail, in both of the cases with ban on holding particular posts or performing particular activities for a period of five years, for misappropriation of public money.
