A group of farmers is now unable to start the spring agricultural works because a businessman operating in Chisinau to whom they supplied the crop gathered in 2018 didn’t honor his financial commitments. The farmers said they sustained damage of almost 2 million lei.

Daniel Bobuţac, a farmer from Briceni, in a news conference at IPN, said last autumn a number of farmers agreed with the companies “Cereale LVN” SRL and “Platinum Agrotrans” SRL based in Chisinau to sell sunflower seeds to them. These are both managed by Ștefan Lucaş. They even undertook to cover a part of the costs for delivering the production to the place indicated by the buyer. The businessman promised the payments will be made in four-seven days, but this wasn’t done. After waiting for 14 days, the farmers travelled to the address of the two companies and learned that the two enterprises stopped having the indicated legal address two years ago. The director of the companies repeatedly ignored farmers’ phone calls. When he answered the phone, he asked them to wait for two-three more days.

The farmers filed complaints to the law enforcement agencies, attaching audio recordings of the telephone conversations with the director, SMSes and other evidence. As a result, there were started a number of criminal cases over swindle and director Ștefan Lucaş was arrested on January 30 this year. In two days, he was set free and placed under house arrest. Daniel Bobuţac said the wronged farmers are indignant and suspect the director  is under someone’s protection and can escape punishment. He noted the businessman owes almost 815,000 lei to him.

Andrei Aniskevici, a farmer from Briceni, said he supplied products worth about 300,000 lei to the two companies and, if he does not get his money, he will be unable to start the new agricultural year. He already paid VAT for selling the sunflower seeds, but the buyer didn’t honor his obligations towards him.

According to Victor Solovei, a farmer from Soroca, since legal action was taken against the director of the two companies, nothing was done to restore the money to the farmers. “We pay taxes to the state, but the state does not protect us at all,” said the farmer, who supplied sunflower seeds to the value of about 360,000 lei.

“Besides other difficulties we encounter in agriculture, we now have one more problem – non-observance of obligations by companies that purchase goods from farmers,” said Nicolae Podobinski, a farmer from Briceni who awaits to be paid 120,000 lei.

Andrian Panfili, a young farmer from Criuleni district, said he wasn’t paid 363,000 lei. “The sum that Ştefan Lucaş owes to me represents about half of my sales in 2018,” stated Andrian Panfili.

The farmers call on the competent bodies to take measures and make sure that the perpetrator is brought to justice.