The former counselor of the Consular Section of the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova in Bucharest, accused in a case of the abuse of office, returned last week another part of the damages caused to the state budget, in the amount of 305,000 lei. Thus, over 1.5 million lei were paid back.

The official drew the attention of the National Anticorruption Center and anti-corruption prosecutors in 2020, after it became known that he allegedly charged taxes from the citizens of the Republic of Moldova for equating Moldovan driving licenses to Romanian ones, which he did not reflect in his accounting diplomatic mission. In 2020, the NAC officers picked up several documents from the headquarters of our Embassy in Bucharest as part of the criminal case initiated on abuse of office.

According to the indictment, during his diplomatic mission as a counselor of the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova in Romania, from 30.01.2017 to 01.08.2020, the accused made, personally signed and issued to natural persons 8929 certificates confirming driving license, issued by the Public Services Agency of the Republic of Moldova, for the purpose of exchanging Moldovan driving licenses for Romanian ones. Out of the total number of documents, 2,566 were issued without the beneficiaries presenting the receipt or the copy of the payment order regarding the entry of the amount into the account. In this way, the official concealed the actual number of requests for consular services and appropriated consular fees and related fees for the issuance of certificates. Accordingly, the consular fee of 30 Euros and the related fee of 5 Euros for each certificate were not collected in the state budget, in total being calculated the sum of 89,810 Euros, the equivalent of 1,796,622 lei.

On January 25 of the current year, the criminal prosecution was sent to the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office with the proposal to terminate the criminal prosecution and send it to the court.

We remind, that on December 1, 2022, the official was charged by the prosecutors of the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office, and on December 2 he deposited part of the amount established as damages in the case on the account opened by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, the first part of the money - 1,020,000 lei, with another 776,626 lei to pay.