Four former and current employees of the National Food Safety Agency (NFSA) and three businessmen will appear before judges on accusations of abuse of power, forgery in public documents and passive corruption by which considerable damage was done to the state budget. The investigation was completed and the case was sent to court, IPN has learned from the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office.

Among those accused are the head of the Agency’s Phytosanitary Products and Fertilizers Control Division and three employees of the local subdivisions in Ialoveni, Drochia and Dubasari. The three businessmen were beneficiaries of the services provided by the aforementioned functionaries. These face up to ten years in jail and ban on holding particular posts or performing particular activities for 10 to 15 years.

The NFSA employees are accused of issuing over 360 national phytosanitary certificates to the three businessmen for exporting 7,200 tonnes of apples to Russia at the start of last year. But these exported apples from Poland to Russia through Belarus without crossing Moldova’s borders. It should be noted that in March 2016, Russia banned the export of apples from Moldova through Belarus.

The accused persons plead not guilty. They were placed under judiciary control. Almost 500,000 lei, €5,000 and over US$10,000 were confiscated to compensate for the caused damage. The money was found during searches.