Major police action: Arrests due to EPS; Ministry of Interior issued statement

Major police action: Arrests due to EPS; Ministry of Interior issued statement

As announced by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, members of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Service for Combating Organized Crime of the UKP, on the order of the Special Anti-Corruption Department of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade, arrested six persons who are suspected of having damaged JP "EPS" ("Electric Power Industry of Serbia") with fraud in the amount of 7,458,050 US dollars.

"Due to reasonable grounds for suspicion that they committed the criminal offense of abuse of official position, the police arrested V. J. (1958), the responsible person for construction supervision of JP 'EPS' branch TE-KO Kostolac and the person authorized on behalf of the investor JP 'EPS' in Kostolac to monitor the realization of the contract for the construction of industrial track, N. M. (1958) engineer at JP 'EPS', TE-KO Kostolac branch, implementation coordinator and project manager of the "First phase package of the Kostolac B project" and chairman of the expert team for monitoring the implementation of the contract for the construction of industrial track from railway station 'Stig' to Thermal Power Plant Kostolac 'B' and M. L. (1957) the person responsible for the expert supervision of the 'Transport Institute CIP' over the construction of the industrial track," reads the statement of MIA (Ministry of Internal Affairs).

"Due to reasonable grounds for suspicion that they have committed the criminal offense of abuse of the position of a responsible person, B. V. S. (1970), former responsible person of the branch of the business company 'Italiana Costrucioni s.p.a', branch from Belgrade, N. T. (1984), former responsible person of the business company 'Bauwesen', d.o.o. Lazarevac, were arrested, as well as Ž. M. (1953), the responsible person for the construction of the industrial track in TE-KO B appointed by the responsible person of the business company 'Italiana Costrucioni s.p.a'", also mentioned by the MIA.

It is suspected that B. V. S., N. T. and Ž. M., in the period from September 2017 to the end of December 2018, created and certified documentation in which they falsely stated that works were performed that were not performed, or were partially performed during the construction of the industrial track from the "Stig" railway station to the Thermal Power Plant Kostolac "B".

Then, as is suspected, M.L. signed and verified the above-mentioned documentation and invoices, after which the responsible persons of EPS for monitoring the project, V.J. and N.M., gave orders to make payment for works that were not performed, all with the aim of obtaining illegal property benefits to the business entities "Italiana Costrucioni s.p.a" - Belgrade branch and "Bauwesen" d.o.o. Lazarevac.

In this way, damage was caused to JP "EPS" in the amount of 7,458,050 US dollars, which was confirmed by the findings and opinion of the Belgrade City Expertise Institute.

The suspects were detained for up to 48 hours and they will be brought to the competent prosecutor's office with a criminal report.

The media stated earlier this morning that the police raided the apartments and detained the suspects on the orders of the prosecution.