MOLDOVAN PROSECUTION SERVICE STARTS INVESTIGATION INTO KIDNAPPING OF TRANSNISTRIAN EX-OFFICIAL FROM MOLDOVAN TERRITORY

The Moldovan Prosecutor General's Office has launched investigation into the kidnapping of Gennady Kuzmichev, ex-head of the Transnistrian customs committee, from the Moldovan territory, his lawyer Veaceslav Turcan said to Infotag.

He explained that only on September 20, after a many-week-long correspondence, he had at last received news on the issue.

"Upon becoming Gennady Kuzmichev's defender and immediately upon his kidnapping last July, I lodged two applications demanding to start a criminal prosecution on that incident. The first application was sent to the Buiucani Police Inspectorate of Chisinau, and the second one - to the Chisinau City Prosecution Office. I did not receive replies from them within a law-stipulated time, so I sent complaints against the inertia of the police and prosecution service. And at last on September 20 I received an official answer signed by Prosecutor Nicu Schendrea, who notified me that the investigation actions into the Kuzmichev kidnapping had been started yet on August 8", said Turcan.

According to him, he has not seen his customer since his disappearance.

"Gennady Kuzmichev has a lawyer in Tiraspol, who has reported that the Transnistrian authorities have classified the Kuzmichev case, so now it has the category of "state secrecy" and access to its materials is extremely limited. Now, for receiving an access to the files, it is necessary to receive a permission signed inter alia by his closest relatives - his mother or sister who come to Chisinau regularly", said the lawyer.

As was already reported by Infotag, last July 27 the Moldovan traffic policemen halted near Chisinau the car in which Kuzmichev was moving together with his relative. While the officers were examining their documents, a jeep stopped nearby, from which 4 well-built masked men jumped out, rushed to the car, grabbed Kuzmichev, forced him into their jeep, and drove away. An eye-witness said afterwards that the scene looked like a well-organized police operation "like in the cinema".

The former head of the Transnistrian customs committee and ex-minister of the Interior, Gennady Kuzmichev is being charged of smuggling by an organized group that had worked since 2012. By its efforts, huge flows of contraband - tobacco, cigarettes, ethanol, alcoholic beverages, meat, clothes etc - used to come to Transnistria or be transited via the region. The group made only fictitious customs procedures, but made no entries to the electronic database. Accordingly, the budget did not receive either customs duties or excises.

According to the investigation, the volume of contraband managed by the criminal group over several years of activities is estimated at US$140 million. The sums of kick-backs are assessed at US$25 million. Kuzmichev and other group members used to earn monthly up to US$2 million each.

After incumbent Transnistria president Vadim Krasnoselsky won the election in early 2017, a criminal investigation was started against previous president Yevgeny Shevchuk and his surrounding. Some of them have been arrested, and some already jailed. Others are still being tried. But Shevchuk and Kuzmichev somehow managed to escape abroad.

The Moldovan and Transnistrian law enforcement have an agreement on cooperation, according to which they help each other in catching and expelling dangerous criminals to each other.