Can corruption affect the right to free movement? Illegal taxes collected by international routes drivers to allegedly facilitate customs clearing.

Participants to the broadcast: Radu Jigau, Expert / lawyer of the Centre for Analysis and Prevention of Corruption (CAPC); Vitalie Fachira, Senior Inspector in the General Directorate for Combating Economic Crime of the Centre for Combating Economic Crime and Corruption (CCECC); Ion Cotruta, Deputy Head of the Motor Transport Directorate, Ministry of Transports and Road Administration; Vladimir Perjan, Deputy Director of the National Agency of Motor Transporters; Sergiu Tanasiev, Chief Inspector within the Directorate of Internal Affairs of the Customs Service (CS).

QUESTIONS:

1. A considerable part of the Republic of Moldova population has left to work abroad, and the main means of transportation are buses and microbuses for international routes.

It looks like that usually, drivers of these routes solicit the payment of additional amounts of money to the cost of the trip from passengers, of approximately Lei 100-300 from every passenger, under the pretext that it is necessary to pay money at the customs in order for the transportation vehicle to pass customs control „like the wind”. Practically, the drivers collect from passengers’ bribes which follow to be paid to customs officers, increasing the cost of the trip. Can we say that this form of corruption that respective drivers are spreading out affects the right of people to free movement?

2. Below follow a few examples of persons who have appealed to the hotline of the CAPC who communicated the following:

  • A person who studies in Czech Republic says that every time when leaving to Prague the bus drivers collect the amount of USD 10 per person and give that to customs officers for them not to check their luggage. The money is shared for 3 customs check-points.
  • The interlocutor uses very often the bus of the route Chisinau-Moscow. The drivers each time collect Lei 300 from each person to facilitate passing the customs control of the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Russia. The drivers openly declare that the money is paid to customs officers. In case that someone refuses to pay the specified amount, the person is treated brutally and warned to be left out at the customs, being practically forced to pay that amount, for which no receipt is issued. In another case, which involved also the route Chisinau-Moscow, the driver of the bus has imposed 48 passengers to pay the amount of Lei 120 each to pass freely the customs check-points up to Moscow. Only the person who made this notification together with another passenger refused to pay that amount, but all the other persons paid.
  • Mrs. Maria from Edinet rayon has communicated about the fact that at the entrance into the Republic of Moldova at the border check-point Mamaliga-Criva, the drivers of the international route bus Berlin-Chisinau have collected from each passenger the amount of Euro 5, which they passed to employees of the check-points, under the pretext „of not waiting to long and not to have problems at customs clearing”. If the necessary amount is not collected, the bus is hold back for a few hours, without evident reasons.

How do you appreciate the facts reported by these persons in their appeals to the CAPC?

3. Has the Ministry of Transports and Road Administration, now in the process of liquidation, or the new Agency of Motor Transporters undertaken or plan to take measures to sanction the actions of drivers who solicit money from travellers for pay offs in customs?

4. Are there measures undertaken and within the Customs Service to recover this situation? Practically, all the travellers of international routes are told that the customs officers are corrupt and that bribes needs to be prepared for them from home.

5. If thinking it over, the drivers collect these illegal taxes from travellers, claiming that they will give them to customs officers, but in reality they might not give them or might give part of the amount to customs officers, keeping the integral amount or part of it for themselves. Because, finally, even if the money is given to customs officers, it id not transmitted in the presence of witnesses. What is happening in reality?

6. The real situation is different from case to case and is defined from all points of view in accordance with the criminal process legislation during investigation.

That means examination of all persons involved, organizing control over money transfer, investigations on the spot, etc. In accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Code, as we mentioned, the offence of traffic of influence is detected once the person affirms that he/she has influence on customs officers, indifferent of the fact whether this influence exists or not in reality. Has the Centre for Combating Economic Crime and Corruption exact cases of suing drivers of international auto routes for collecting illegal amounts of money from passengers, with the pretext that the money is paid off at the customs? Or of Customs officers?

7. What a person should do, if in a bus or microbus that travels abroad, after having paid the cost of travelling, the driver is asking money to pay it off at the customs?