Civil aviation employees suspected of smuggling and trafficking in persons

The officers of the Ministry of Interiors of Moldova (MAI) have discovered a number of criminal networks engaged in currency smuggling, trafficking in persons and ID counterfeiting, which are reportedly involving some civil aviation employees. The acting chief of the Ministry’s Internal Affairs Division, Ion Berbinschi, told a news conference on Thursday that the MAI officers have discovered a currency-smuggling network, which was working under the direct protection of a senior officer from the Air Transport Police. He claims that a passenger onboard a plane heading for Moscow was caught red-handed when he tried to take out of the country a sum of over 180,000 US dollars. The pass through the customs checkpoint of the airport was secured by an officer of the Customs service. One of the versions of the investigation is that the scheme was working for quite a while and managed to smuggle at least 300,000 dollars. In addition, there were found some schemes dealing with trafficking in persons, which were involving employees of different ranks of the Customs Service, of the Air Transport Police, Border Service, Aeronautic Safety Service, Transport Police, of the airlines Air Moldova, Moldavian Airlines and Voyage International travel agency. At present, the MAI officers are conducting investigations to find all the rings of the discovered criminal chains. In this connection, MAI is asking all the people with relevant information to call the Internal Affairs Division on 226574 or 255491.