The police arrested eight persons, among whom state functionaries, who are suspected of forming part of a criminal group that counterfeited and smuggled alcoholic beverages and tobacco products in very large quantities, IPN reports.
The General Police Inspectorate’s deputy head Gheorghe Cavcaliuc told a news conference that among the suspects are a current employee and a former employee of the Border Police, an ex-employee of the Customs Service and the manager of a local state ecological inspectorate situated in northern Moldova. The detection of this group was an unprecedented process given that the suspects possess experience in combating such illegalities and it was very hard to discover them.
The suspects operated in a number of clandestine buildings, including a mineral water factory where they counterfeited and bottled the alcohol. The smuggled ethyl alcohol didn’t look suspicious as it looked like mineral water. Ruslan Petrusenco, division head at the National Investigations Inspectorate, said the suspects also smuggled cigarettes through the green area of the state border with Ukraine. The criminal group worked both in the north and the south of Moldova.
Within the investigation, 75 searches were carried at the homes, offices and in the cars of the suspects as well as in places where illegalities were committed. The police found about 169,000 packs of cigarettes of different makes to the value of 2 million lei. There were also detected 10 tonnes of ethyl alcohol and 2,000 bottles of vodka of different brands to the value of almost 2 million lei, 2,000 forged excise stamps that were to be put on the bottles with alcohol and foreign currency of 1.3 million lei earned from the criminal activities.
The eight suspects face up to 15 years in jail.
