The case in which former chief of Moldovan Railways Iurie Topala is charged on two counts, sent to trial. Prosecutors have seized assets worth about one million euros

The Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS) announces on Wednesday, December 21, the indictment of the former director of the Moldovan Railways (CFM), Iurie Topală, extradited in early November from Belgium on two counts in the case of the company he headed, according to a press release.

During the criminal prosecution, PCCOCS prosecutors, together with employees of the Criminal Assets Recovery Agency, identified and seized movable and immovable assets of both the accused person and the interlocutors, which were located in the R. Moldova, but also in foreign jurisdictions such as Romania and Belgium. The total value of the seizures is approximately €1 million.

Prosecutors accuse the former director of failing to collect revenues of almost 800 million lei as a result of his overstepping his duties. This, in turn, did not allow to cover the internal losses recorded by CFM from other activities, which caused considerable damage to the company’s assets of almost 100 million lei, resulting from net losses in 2018 and 2019, according to PCCOCS.

“The former director general is also accused that as a result of abuse of office, jointly with other members of the organized criminal group, he favored two companies that provided transport services to the railway, being their actual beneficiaries.

Following the actions of the accused person, with the participation of other members of the criminal group, the favored enterprises benefited from preferential tariffs for rail transport services in the period 2017-2019, damaging CFM with more than 300 million lei,” the statement reads.

Following the completion of the criminal prosecution and the submission to the parties of the criminal prosecution materials for information, the case has been sent to trial; and until a final decision is rendered, the defendant is presumed innocent, according to the law.

Iurie Topala remains in pre-trial detention, based on the request of PCCOCS prosecutors, who will ask for the extension of the measure, the Prosecutor’s Office said.

Earlier, the PCCOCS had sent other “members of the organised criminal group” to the dock, and investigations in the underlying case are continuing.

On 11 January 2022, Belgian authorities detained Iurie Topală at the “Gosselies – Charleroi” airport in Belgium. At that time, representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office told ZdG that an arrest warrant had previously been issued for Topală in a criminal case initiated in connection with the mismanagement of CFM from 2015-2019, as a result of which CFM was damaged by 250 million lei.

Iurie Topală, a former city councillor and an exponent of the Liberal Party, led CFM from 2015 to 2019. In 2019, Ziarul de Gardă wrote that Topală owns a thriving business in the public transport sector – “Ruta-Prim” Ltd. – which manages in Chisinau the routes: 113, 135, 186, 188, 192 – with more than 240 minibus units and about 25 buses on route 22 and the Chisinau-Grătiești route.

In 2012, Iurie Topală’s name appeared in an investigation by Ziarul de Gardă on the administration of routes in Chisinau.