Four persons, one of whom a policeman and a former police officer, were arrested as a result of an operation performed by the National Anticorruption Center and anticorruption prosecutors. There were carried out 11 searches, including at a penitentiary. A group of people is suspected of employing a scheme to extort money by creating artificial situations, IPN reports, quoting the National Anticorruption Center.
The investigators established that a member of the group had an older debt of 20,000 lei to a young man. The latter informed that he and the debtor agreed a place where to meet to get his money back. When the two met, the debtor told him that he does not have the whole sum, but can offer him drugs instead of the other part of the debt. After giving him the drugs, the man presented a police permit, saying he was a police officer under cover investigating a case of trafficking in drugs. Two more persons appeared, posing as police officers. The three told him to pay €7,000 for not holding him accountable for trafficking in drugs.
A criminal case was started over passive corruption in this case. Under the guidance of anticorruption officers, there were transmitted a number of tranches of the asked sum. Today, one of the men was arrested when he was receiving the last tranche. Another three persons, including a policeman of the Ialoveni Police Inspectorate, were escorted to the National Anticorruption Center for questioning.
Within the same case, the Department of Penitentiary Institutions took similar actions in a penitentiary. As a result, there were seized a number of banned objects. The Department launched an additional internal inquiry to determine how the banned objects appeared there. The investigation is carried out by the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office.
