The Northern Office of the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office has announced the completion of the criminal investigation and the referral to the court for examination of seven criminal cases on the fact of active corruption committed by the representatives of seven economic agents from the North of the Republic of Moldova regarding public persons from the Balti Territorial Section of the Agency for Interventions and Payments for Agriculture (AIPA). The cases were started between September 2022 and January 2023, by the General Territorial Directorate North of the National Anticorruption Center, and the prosecution was conducted by the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office, Northern Office.

Following the criminal prosecution and the special investigative measures carried out on the respective criminal cases, it was established that the representatives of economic agents referred to justice, during the years 2020-2022, following the submission of subsidy files to the Balti Territorial Section of AIPA, illegally offered and sent to the employees of the Balti Territorial Section of AIPA undue monetary means to exercise their duties, which varied between 400 and 2000 lei, to admit the applications and subsidy files for examination and, respectively, obtain subsidies from project funds managed by AIPA in the interest of economic agents.

At the same time, for the purposes indicated above, the accused also made disguised transfers of funds from the bank accounts of the companies represented by other organizations affiliated to the employees of the Balti Territorial Section of AIPA, where the amounts illegally transferred for the purpose of corruption ranged from 1,200 to 34,000 lei, the transfers being disguised as economic operations that did not take place in reality, and the real destination of the money transferred being in fact the corruption of the employees of the Balti Territorial Section of AIPA.

Six defendants out of seven referred to justice cooperated with the criminal investigation body and the prosecutors, admitting the incriminated facts, thus the criminal cases regarding them were severed from the basic file in separate procedures of the plea agreement, being referred to the court for examination in special procedures. At the same time, the seventh accused did not admit his guilt in committing the crime, the criminal case regarding him will be examined in the general procedure.

Currently, the accused are being investigated in a state of freedom, and the examination of criminal cases is carried out by the Bălți Court.

At the moment, based on the complexity of the case and the multitude of facts investigated in the basic file, the criminal investigation continues with regard to other economic agents accused of active corruption and with regard to the employees of the Balti Territorial Section of AIPA accused of passive corruption and money laundering, as well as regarding the representatives of economic agents who participated as accomplices in the commission of passive corruption by the employees of the Balti Territorial Section of AIPA by offering the possibility of transferring bribes received from economic agents to obtain subsidies to their accounts.