The administration of Moldova’s Railways is intimidating the employees who speak publicly about the violations committed at the company, employee Victor Topor said in a news conference at IPN. He stated that after he gave a news conference last yearned, they started to pressurize him into resigning.

Victor Topor told the journalists that he earlier worked as train chief on the Chisinau – Bucharest route. After he made public a number of cases of cigarette smuggling, transportation of passengers without tickets, bribery and payments made for being named as conductors, persons holding high-ranking positions at the company began to exert pressure on him so that he quitted.

According to Victor Topor, no warning had been issued against him for eight years, but, after he made statements publicly, he was warned four times in two months. He asked to be allowed to go on leave at his own expense, but was refused to. Afterward, he was provoked into getting into a fight with an official of the company. Even if he didn’t yield, that official submitted a complaint against him to the police and administrative proceedings are now filed against him so that he can be dismissed.

In the same news conference, Igor Caldare, a member of the initiative group of the Civic Congress, called on representatives of the Security and Information Service and the similar institution of Romania to take harsh steps over the contraband smuggled by the Chisinau – Bucharest train. The train runs daily only in order to smuggle cigarettes. The cars were transformed so as to smuggle contraband and they pose a real danger to the passengers’ health.

Igor Caldare also said that steps are being taken to make Moldova’s Railways bankrupt and to privatize it by different ways, including by artificially creating debts towards a Romanian company, so that the assets are later offered to it to repay the debts.

Pavel Gavrilov, a member of the initiative group of the Civic Congress, said that he followed attentively the cases of contraband smuggling through this train and informed the administration of Moldova’s Railways about them, but no reaction followed.