Four persons investigated in the case of blank IDs are to be remanded in custody for a period of 30 days. The prosecutors will yet take additional measures to put these persons on the wanted list and to make sure these appear before the investigation body, IPN reports.
The Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office said that the investigation into this case was started last October over abuse of office for pecuniary interests committed by decision makers of the Public Services Agency. One more criminal case was started this April over abuse of office in the interests of an organized criminal group. The two cases were later merged into one.
The persons summoned earlier for being questioned and classed as accused didn’t show up. As a result, anticorruption prosecutors asked the court to issue warrants for the arrest of a public servant of the Public Services Agency and three businessmen who were effective beneficiaries of the payments made as a result of the illegal signing of legal documents by the Public Services Agency that is the lawful successor of the Information Resources Center “Registru”. The Ciocana Court ordered remand detention for them.
Sixty searches were conducted in May at the homes, offices and in the cars of former and current employees of the Agency. These are suspected of following, in 2013-2021, the instructions of other persons who formed part of a criminal group created and led by a person who was notorious at that time. They planned a scheme to illegally purchase an automated system for producing and personalizing documents and for purchasing blank identity cards, driver’s licenses and certificates.
The suspects abused their powers and illegally signed contracts for the provision of services and later additional contracts and agreements, in the absence of public procurement procedures, the goal being to favor a concrete economic entity and to benefit from payments that were abusively introduced after the signing of the initial contract. This inevitably led to a rise in the price of IDs issued to citizens.
They are also suspected of later unjustifiably increasing the quantity and sum of the contract for the purchase of blank IDs with personalized technologies, causing damage of over 500 million lei to the state-run Information Resources Center “Registru” and later to the Public Services Agency.
