Other 9 policemen are suspected of committing offenses. The Deputy Minister of Interior, Andrei Pogurschi, has told a news conference Tuesday that the suspects have been arrested for money extortion and for influence peddling, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the vice minister, on August 8, an officer from the Ialoveni police was caught red-handed. He was taking 4,500 lei from a person not to start a penal inquest. The case was not unveiled earlier not to damage the inquest. A traffic police officer from Chisinau was caught as he was receiving 290 lei from a citizen to return numberplates of several vehicles, which were arrested, illegally, the same day under the pretext of not matching technical requirements. Penal probes have been started in both cases. The policemen may get fined from 60 to 100 thousand lei or be jailed from 5 to 10 years. An officer with the drug traffic countering service of the Chisinau Commissariat was caught red-handed as he was extorting 1,000 and 1,200 lei from a citizen not to start probing him for keeping drugs. On 3 September, an penal inquest police officer from Straseni was arrested as he was receiving 2,000 euros not to start probing an act of hooliganism. Two officers from the Buiucani commissariat have been arrested under suspicion of impelling a citizen to sell drugs, menacing him to start an inquest. Three accomplices were identified in the same operation – two police officers and a 29-year old citizen. If found guilty, the policemen may get jailed from 5 to 7 years. 4 employees of the police commissariat of Buiucani district of Chisinau were taken into custody on September 4 as they were trying to sell half a kilo of heroin. In the first 8 months of the year, over 160 policemen have been probed for different offenses.