The prosecutors sent to court the criminal case started against the former director of Moldova’s Railways (CFM) Iurie Topală, who was recently extradited from Belgium and is now in remand detention, IPN reports.

The Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Special Cases said the ex-director is accused of abuse of office as a result of which the company failed to collect almost 800 million lei revenues. Consequently, Moldova’s Railways was unable to cover internal losses incurred due to other activities. So, the company was caused damage totaling almost 100 million lei due to the net losses sustained in 2018 and 2019.

The former director is also accused of favoring, together with other members of the organized criminal group, two enterprises that provided transport services for CFM, being effective beneficiaries of these. As a result, the favored enterprises benefitted from preferential railway transport charges in 2017-2019, causing damage of over 300 million lei to CFM.

Assets to the value of about €1 million belonging to the accused and other persons involved, located in Moldova and also abroad, in such countries as Romania and Belgium, were sequestrated.

Other suspects in this case were charged earlier. The investigations go on.