NGO leader accuses border officers of racketeering

Fiodor Ghelici, the president of the “Moldova Mea” (“My Moldova”) Association, accuses the law enforcement officers working along Moldova’s borders of engaging in criminal practices like racketeering. In this connection, the leader of the organization sent a letter to Vladimir Voronin asking the President to appoint him as director of the Center for Combating Economic Crimes and Corruption (CCECC), Info-Prim Neo reports. At a news conference on Monday, April 21, Fiodor Ghelici stated he wanted to prove to the President and to the entire country that curbing corruption and gangsterism is possible. The leader of My Moldova even offered to work for free as CCECC director for the first half a year in office. Fiodor Ghelici alleges motor carriers are compelled to make illegal payments to the officers of the Border Guard Service, Customs Service and other persons in position every time they need to cross the border. Each month drivers pay out some 3 million lei to customs officers and 600,000 lei to border guards in bribe money at the 10 checkpoints along the Moldovan borders (except those located in the Transnistrian region), says Ghelici, adding that no doubt a significant share of this money gets into high-ranked officials’ pockets. “Today all the smuggling schemes, including drug rings, are under the supervision of authorities. Everyone knows this, but no one gives a damn”, he complained. According to Ghelici, the highest rates of criminality among border officers are in Russia, followed by Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. Belarus is the only country to have got rid of corruption at its borders by punishing drastically the guilty ones. Serghei Verici, a trucker, revealed that each exit from and entry into Moldova costs a driver an average of 50 lei and 10 lei paid to the customs officer and border guard, respectively. “If you don’t pay 50 lei to the customs officer to check and process your papers, they will be laid aside. You can wait for hours until the officer condescends to take a look at your papers”, said Serghei Verici. If someone dares not to grease the officers’ palms, the vehicle gets subject to all kinds of tiresome checks, said Alexandru Svet, the operator of a truck that transports unladen Dacia cars from Romania. The driver revealed that once he was stuck for 10 days in a Ukrainian border checkpoint, being subjected to a plethora of checks and inspections, after he refused to bribe the officer. One of the main causes of the ‘Moldovan exodus’ is the fact that in order to work and live here, one has to give bribes to anyone who occupies a public office, Ghelici concluded.