The Anti-Corruption Agency within Georgia’s State Security Service (SSG) has arrested 21 people in connection with corruption crimes in seven different cases. None of those detained were named by the SSG.
The SSG reported the arrests, which took place across Georgia, during a briefing on Thursday. Though separate cases, the first three involved attempts to avoid Georgia’s mandatory 12-month conscription into the army, which applies to all male citizens aged 18–27.
The first case the SSG announced involved a psychiatrist and a security officer from the Interior Ministry who were detained in Tbilisi on charges of bribery, assistance in bribery, and official forgery. According to the investigation, the two prepared a false medical diagnosis to a conscript, allowing him to evade military service. The charges carry a possible prison sentence of six to nine years.
In a similar case, one citizen was arrested and another charged for allegedly promising a citizen the postponement of conscription by establishing a ‘temporary incompatibility of health status’ in return for ₾10,000 ($3,700), of which ₾5,000 ($1,850) was delivered upfront. No assistance ever followed. Under the charges, the defendants are facing between four to seven years in prison.
Likewise, the third case announced by the SSG involved the former head of the Kareli Municipality City Hall’s Military Registration and Conscription Service, who was charged with abuse of official authority, official forgery, and repeated production, sale, and use of forged official documents along with the manager of Bermukhi LLC.
According to the SSG, the former official had, while still employed by the municipality, falsified medical reports and registered six conscripts for alternative labour service, including at Bermukha LLC. The company manager in turn ‘repeatedly issued false certificates and descriptions, stating that the conscripts in question were employed by Bermukha LLC and were undergoing non-military, alternative labour service’, despite the fact that some conscripts were based abroad at the time. Both of those charged face up to six years in prison.
In a separate case, the SSG found that four doctors from Krol Medical Corporation LLC and Tbilisi Central Hospital LLC had prepared false health certificates and other medical documents for 315 people, according to which the relevant ministry granted them the status of a person with disabilities and were assigned a state pension. The four doctors have been held criminally liable for group commercial bribery and the production and sale of false official documents, charges which carry a term of imprisonment of four to six years.
The fifth case announced involved a representative of Elmaris LLC, a director of Tegika Universal LLC, and an expert from Expert Service LLC for ‘large-scale fraud and aiding and abetting fraud, as well as for making and using a false official document’.
According to the investigation, during rehabilitation of a football field in the rural village of Khidistavi, Chokhatauri Municipality, these three businesspeople ‘fraudulently appropriated’ over ₾19,000 ($7,050) belonging to the Chokhatauri Municipality City Hall. According to the charges, they face up to nine years in prison.
In a similar fraud case, the SSG reported that the director and accountant of Euro Road LLC, the director of Biltmore LLC, and the former supervisor of the inspection body Expert House LLC were ‘charged with large-scale fraud and aiding and abetting fraud by a group with prior agreement, as well as the production and use of a false official document’. The three were involved in road rehabilitation works organised by the Gurjaani Municipality City Hall, which later found a difference of over ₾38,000 ($14,000) between the works actually carried out and what was reported to the city hall.
The last case announced by the SSG involved an employee of the same Gurjaani Municipality City Hall, a representative of the city’s mayor, and two other citizens, who are accused of fraudulently acquiring a 3,900 sqm plot of land worth ₾70,200 ($26,000). They have been charged with large-scale fraud, aiding and abetting fraud, official forgery, and the production and use of a fake official document by using their official position, and face up to nine years in prison.
In addition to reporting the arrests, the SSG noted that in relation to the above-mentioned crimes, ‘covert investigative actions were carried out, as a result of which audio and video evidence of the commission of the aforementioned criminal act was obtained’.
This corruption probe is the latest in a series of similar investigations, including into former Georgian Dream officials, the most notable of which was ex-Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili, who was sentenced earlier in January to five years in prison on charges of laundering roughly $6.5 million in ill-gotten gains.
Mikheil Gvadzabia
