The minister of internal affairs, lieutenant-general Gheorghe Papuc, has a fake university certificate, which states that he allegedly finished, at the age of 38, the law faculty of the University from Taskent, Uzbekistan, according to an independent journalistic investigation of the Pro TV channel. According to the cited source, the fact that Papuc bought the certificate in order to advance on the hierarchical ladder of the soviet police was mentioned by two newspapers in Chisinau, “Kommersant Molodvi” and “Accente”. Both newspapers publicised the response of the Russian FSB to the interpellation by the former minister of Security, Tudor Botnaru, dating from January 4, 1998, and both were closed afterwards. The accuracy of the FSB answer was recently confirmed for Pro TV Chisinau by Tudor Botnaru himself. The respective document says that Gheorghe Papuc, born in 1953, former employee of the MIA from Kabarino-Balkaria, was investigated within a criminal file instituted by the Department of the Federal Service of Security from this republic on November 13, 1995 for forgery. The secret services from Kabardino-Balkaria established that Gheorghe Papuc, not having special education, “bought, with the goal of being promoted, a fake certificate that says he graduated the law faculty of the University from Taskent, Uzbekistan in 1991”. Also, the document made public by Pro TV Chisinau mentions that Papuc would have committed various misuses of authority during the period when he worked in Kabardino-Balkaria. “Being in charge of various divisions, he used to take possession of certain goods: construction materials, confiscated armament, accompanied cargo vehicles for a charge etc. Having a number of passports on him, he conducted illegal operations with real-estate goods and automobiles. In the city of Nalcik, he owned 4-5 real-estate properties and 3 automobiles at the same time on different names”, is also mentioned in the FSB document, dating from January 4, 1998. The biography of the minister of internal affairs, placed on the official site of the government, says that Papuc has 3 university certificates – The Superior Military School “M. E. Dzerjinski” (correctly F. E. Dzerjinski – annotation) in Saratov, the Judicial Institute of the MIA of the Russian Federation and the Economics and Law Institute in Moscow, specialising in law.