Chisinau Court, Buiucani headquarters, pronounced the sentence in the criminal case referred to justice by the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office, regarding the actions of a foreign citizen, accused of committing the crime of smuggling. The criminal case was started in March 2023, by the National Anti-corruption Centre based on the self-referral and was sent to the court in December 2023 by the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office.

According to the administered evidence, between January and March 2023, the defendant introduced into the Republic of Moldova from the Republic of Turkey financial means in the amount of 84,386,000 Ukrainian hryvnias, the equivalent of over 2 million Euros, which were later smuggled out and introduced on the territory of Ukraine. At the same time, on May 6, 2023, under identical circumstances, he was supposed to smuggle Ukrainian hryvnias in particularly large proportions from the Republic of Moldova, but the criminal act was not carried out, being detained by the NAC employees and money was taken from him.

The criminal prosecution lasted 9 months and the trial of the case 3 months, the person fully admitting his guilt in committing the incriminated acts and a plea agreement was concluded.

Thus, by the sentence of March 20, 2024, the court accepted the plea agreement concluded between the accused and the prosecutor, he being recognized as guilty of committing the criminal offenses, establishing a prison sentence for a term of 4 years and 2 months , with conditional suspension of the prison sentence for a probationary period of 4 years.

The funds detected and seized during the search and seized with the support of the Criminal Assets Recovery Agency (CARA) of the NAC, in foreign currency in the amount of 16,595,000 UAH, approximately 400,000 euros, were confiscated for the benefit of the state.

The sentence can be appealed to the Chisinau Court of Appeal within 15 days.

Note: A person accused of committing a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a final court decision.