Georgia:Â The Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia charged 12 persons with fraudulent possession of large amounts of money belonging to the state and manufacturing of fake tax and official documents.
An investigation conducted by the Ministry of Finance’s Investigation Service, it has been co-financing individuals and individual entrepreneurs for the purchase of agricultural equipment, based on the appropriate government establishment since 2019, based on the government’s. According to the project, the state was compensating the co-payment of the above-mentioned equipment within a maximum of 50%, not more than 150,000 GEL.
To take advantage of this program, the beneficiary must present to the agency an invoice written by the equipment supplier, a receipt confirming the payment of his/her participation fee, a private audit conclusion about the beneficiary’s contractual obligation, followed by the Rural Development Agency, a partner intended to purchase agricultural equipment S was donating the money to the beneficiary.
In order to illegally embezzle large amounts of money allocated to the state allocated within the mentioned project, the defendants have formed a criminal group with a contractual structure since 2021.
For this purpose, in the period 2021-2024, the defendants repeatedly applied to the AIP “Rural Development Agency” on behalf of various beneficiaries to receive co-financing and submitted fake invoices, trade remuneration, technology acquisition acts, and audit conclusions. Based on the fake documents submitted, the agency handed over the co-financing amount allocated to the defendants to the bank accounts in their department to purchase agricultural equipment – 826 815 GEL.
The members of the criminal group did not purchase any agricultural machinery, and large amounts of money received from the agency were illegally seized and distributed among themselves.
Twelve members of the organized group were detained on the basis of an appropriate court order. They have been charged under articles 180, 210, and 362 of the Criminal Code of Georgia (by an organized group, possession of a large quantity of others’ property by deception, group fabrication – use and fabrication of a fake official document – use). The crime envisages imprisonment from 7 to 10 years as a punishment.
