Svetlana Chifa prosecuted in three criminal cases concerning 'international illegal adoption'

Svetlana Chifa, the head of the municipal department for children's rights protection, is prosecuted in three criminal cases, conducted by the Prosecutor General's Office, on charges of arranging illegal international adoptions, Moldova's Prosecutor General Valeriu Gurbulea told a news conference on Thursday, Info-Prim Neo reports. Valeriu Gurbulea said Svetlana Chifa is suspected of “abuses of authority, and criminal interests in organizing international adoptions”. “Chifa organized a criminal scheme which I'd rather call not international adoption, but a terribly cynical, legally disguised form of trafficking in children. A network of persons was employed to find the healthiest children, to invent cover stories making these children badly sick and thus rendering them ineligible for domestic adoption. Big pots of money were involved in every case”, said Gurbulea. According to him, the last case discovered by prosecutors involves a girl placed in a residential institution, whom Chifa tried to put up for adoption, despite attempts by the girl's grandmother to adopt her. “Chifa put pressure on the administration of the institution so that the girl is transferred to Chisinau and then proposed for adoption, in breach of law, to a couple of foreigners”, said the prosecutor general. In recent years, Chifa had been under constant surveillance by investigators in connection with multiple abuses and offensive practices. Proceedings against her were initiated in November 2006. In 2005, Chifa had been prosecuted in another criminal case, in which a group of children had been flown to the US to be adopted. The case was quashed because the adoption decisions had been passed by courts. Valeriu Gurbulea claims that additional probes into that case revealed that Svetlana Chifa, by abusing her position, misled the courts into passing those decisions, which the General Prosecutor's Office will now try to render void. Gurbulea denied the allegations that the proceedings against Chifa, who is also the member of the Moldova Noastra Alliance, were politically motivated. “No political interests or orders exist in this case. The prosecutors learned about Svetlana Chifas's allegiance to AMN only after conducting a search at her office, where they found some AMN papers”. Svetlana Chifa was arrested on Tuesday evening under a 72-hour preventive arrest warrant after being quizzed by prosecutors.