The former director of the Sports Center for Training National Squads was arrested on suspicion that he took €200,000 bribe for arranging a civil society contract by which a public lot was to be signed over to a business entity. According to the National Anticorruption Center, it happened in 2015, when the suspect managed the Center, while the criminal case was started in 2021 based on the denouncement submitted by the company, IPN reports.

It was determined that the former head of the Center promised the director of a limited liability company based in Chisinau that he would lease him out a publicly owned lot located at 72/2 Decebal St that belonged to the Sports Center for Training National Squads and the Ministry of Sport. Later, the lot was to be transferred under private ownership. To prepare the necessary documents, the Center’s head asked for €200,000 and he received this money from the denouncer right in his office. Even if the law bans the sale of publicly owned lots, the functionary agreed to sign this contract and to help the company come into possession of the lot.

Anticorruption officers and prosecutors carried out searches at the home of the Center’s former head in the morning of November 11. This was arrested for 72 hours as a suspect and faces a maximum jail term of 15 years for passive corruption.