Thirteen persons were detained and are to be charged with the application of a corruption scheme when issuing cadastral documents. These are real estate and mortgage brokers and employees of the Public Services Agency who, in collusion with a former real estate agent, facilitated the obtaining of cadastral documents, IPN reports, quoting the National Anticorruption Center.

Several hundred episodes of such cases were investigated. Those involved facilitated the issuing of permissive documents for the sale and purchase of real estate, avoiding the legal appointment scheduling procedure and asking for illegal payments for corrupting employees of the PSA. The applicants asked for being issued with documents in the absence of owners and proxies.

The official tax for registering a contract during a standard period of ten days is 260 lei, while the organizer of the scheme collected 900 lei. For an extract from the Real Estate Register, the applicants paid 1,400 lei, but the official tax is 500 lei in the case of a standard period of three days. The organizer used the collected amounts to pay the state tax and to corrupt functionaries and kept the rest.

Update /16:15pm/ In several hours, the National Anticorruption Center announced that the 14th person was arrested. This is a real estate agent who was remanded in the Center’s custody for 72 hours.

Earlier today, officers of the National Anticorruption Center and anticorruption prosecutors carried out searches involving 38 persons within a number of criminal cases started over active corruption, passive corruption and influence peddling. Searches were performed inside cars, homes and offices of suspects. These face maximum jails terms of ten years and heavy fines.

Update /16:16pm/ In connection with today’s developments, the Public Services Agency said that it is actively communicating with NAC and the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office and offers all the necessary assistance in identifying those to blame and in fully elucidating the examined cases so that they reach court.

IPN in November reported that appointments for cadastral services provided in an ordinary regime can be made at the multifunctional centers of the municipality of Chisinau after over a month and a half and there are practically no chances of accessing services by staying in an ordinary queue.