The Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS) announces the indictment of a former deputy interior minister responsible for “creating and directing an organized criminal group” that allegedly shadowed two anti-corruption prosecutors in October 2020.

According to ZdG sources, the person in question is former deputy minister Veaceslav Ceban, who was appointed to the post in May 2013 at the proposal of then interior minister Dorin Recean.

“To achieve this goal, the accused created a group within the criminal organization “Plahotniuc,” and the recruited members were promised salaries “no lower than an MAI employee.” In the case of one of the members, who was responsible for drafting the information notes on illegal wiretapping actions, he was paid 20 thousand lei a month, according to file materials.”

Thus, according to the PCCOCS, in addition to the alleged tailing of an anti-corruption prosecutor and a deputy of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, the group would also have collected information about other persons visiting the institution, in connection with the file generically called “Bank Fraud” in which the accused was also targeted.

According to the materials of the file, which was processed with the support of SIS and SPIA officers of the MAI, the actions of the criminal group were “unofficially protected under the umbrella of a unit responsible for the internal security of a political party”.

As for the accused’s accomplices, their criminal files have been sent to court and, until a final decision is handed down, they are presumed innocent by law.

Under the Criminal Code, the creation and leadership of a criminal organisation is punishable by imprisonment for 8 to 15 years.

Ziarul de Gardă previously wrote that in 2017 Veaceslav Ceban, a former deputy minister of internal affairs and head of the Department of Penitentiary Institutions, under criminal investigation in a case of influence peddling, was fined 112 500 lei (2250 conventional units). The former deputy minister’s godson, Stanislav Caraman, who allegedly brokered the bribery, also received a fine of 150,000 lei (3000 cu).