The two policemen who are being investigated by the Debrecen Regional Prosecutor’s Office for the crime of accepting an official bribe committed in violation of their official duty have been arrested, the Central Prosecutor’s Office told MTI.
In the investigation ordered for corruption crimes, on September 19, the Regional Investigative Prosecutor’s Office conducted a criminal operation at several locations – at the road border crossing in Ártánd and the highway border crossing in Nagykerek – the Anti-Terror Center, the Hajdú-Bihar County Police Headquarters, the National Defense Service and in cooperation with the staff of the Asset Recovery Office of the National Investigation Bureau of the Emergency Police – they wrote.
According to the basis of the well-founded suspicion, in October 2022, the two border guards were performing passport management services at the border crossing in Ártánd, when a German lorry applied to exit at around 11 p.m.
The driver handed over the documents required for exit to the border police. The border guard pulled the truck aside and said that he had noticed so many deficiencies in the vehicle’s documents that a fine of around four thousand euros would have to be paid, and then suggested that “it could be solved with one thousand five hundred euros.”
The persons who applied for the crossing disputed that there were any irregularities in connection with the vehicle and the crossing, so they did not want to pay, they said that they only had 500 euros – which the border guard would have been satisfied with – but they did not want to hand over that either.
According to the public prosecutor’s statement, the border policeman said several times that he and his colleague would only be allowed to cross into Romania if they paid, and then they were kept waiting without taking any action.
After about two hours, the two persons – despite the fact that there was no legal basis for their detention and the imposition of the fine – handed over three hundred euros and seventy thousand forints to the border police, and after the official reduced it, another two hundred lei. The border guards then allowed the truck to cross the border, but the specified crossing data were not recorded in the register.
The prosecutor’s office ordered the detention of the two perpetrators, interrogated them as suspects, and then successfully proposed their arrest. The defendants and their lawyers filed an appeal against the order of the Military Council of the Debrecen Tribunal – concludes the announcement of the prosecutor’s office.
(MTI)
