Court grants additional time for plea bargaining in large-scale document counterfeiting case
At a Wednesday earing, Harju County Court granted additional time for the Office of the Prosecutor General and the defendants in the case of a criminal organization involved in the illegal issuing of official documents to negotiate plea bargains.
Judge Merle Parts set the date of the net hearing for Jan 26, county court spokesperson Kristina Ots told ERR’s online news portal.
Chief state prosecutor Steven-Hristo Evestus and the defendants together with their lawyers are negotiating plea bargains in the case.
The Office of the Prosecutor General has accused Ljubov Genrihson, 65, currently the only individual to remain in custody, with the formation and leading of a criminal organization as well as repeatedly giving and aiding the giving of bribes, the counterfeiting and aiding in counterfeiting of official documents, the use of counterfeited documents, the fraudulent use of important identity documents and fraud.
Meeli Paluvits, Žanna Reede, Laivi Seeman, Ülle Lill, Sergei Zimakov, Irina Savenkova, Olga Tsvetkova, Jekaterina Botšarova, Jekaterina Leonova and Anton Kimmer are also all on trial for, among other things, belonging to a criminal organization. Oksana Dmitrieva is likewise to go on trial for the fraudulent use of important identity documents.
According to ERR’s information, the Office of the Prosecutor General terminated the proceedings involving a total of 75 suspects over the course of the criminal investigation due to rational considerations. The majority of these individuals had illegally procured needed documents with the help of the criminal organization between 2011-2015.
Charges
According to the charges, people were able to purchase from four officials of the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) various official documents, including diplomas, residence permits, documents needed to obtain citizenship and medical certificates, for which members of the crime ring employed forgery, the submission of false data and accomplices employing false identities, among other tactics.
The PPA officials were not the organizers of the document business, however they provided information about applications, conducted database searches, accepted applications containing false information and issued documents on the basis thereof, receiving bribes for their work. Of the four PPA officials charged, two were service point hall employees and two were specialists.
The investigation revealed that customers had not been paying for the counterfeiting of specific documents but rather for the retrieval of data from citizenship and immigration sector databases needed to submit as ideal and suitable of applications as possible for residency permits and citizenship.
Intermediaries assisted by allowing people to register their home addresses as their legal places of residence, while third parties were also made up in salons to look as similar as possible to individuals wishing to successfully pass language and citizenship exams, for example.
The PPA’s Internal Audit Bureau caught on to the illegal document scam as a result of the collection and analysis of information in spring 2015. Half a year later, at the end of October, twelve suspects were arrested following Operation "Maarika," of which one still remains in custody.
Scam ring leader 'Maarika' had three separate identities
PPA Director General Elmar Vaher has previously told ETV’s news broadcast "Aktuaalne kaamera" that Genrihson had three different personal identification codes.
"Which meant that there is one DNA but ‘Maarika’ had three personal identification codes," he commented.
According to Vaher, Genrihson led the network through two other individuals and had not personally met with a single client.
The investigation revealed that those utilizing the illegal means of applying for residence permits or citizenship with the help of counterfeited documents were generally originally from third countries, however among them were also stateless holders of alien’s passports in Estonia, known colloquially as “gray passport owners.”
"This criminal activity was well planned," Vaher noted. "For example, the PPA employees did not know a thing about their own colleagues working in the same network; each one of them believed that only they were earning money this way."
Editor: Editor: Aili Vahtla