Employees of the Organized Crime Investigation Directorate of the National Investigation Inspectorate (INI) and those of the General Prosecution Directorate, together with prosecutors from the Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS), have conducted conducting searches of several persons appearing in a criminal case aimed at preparing mass riots on Friday morning, November 25.

Previously, raids were carried out in Chisinau and Hincesti on November 11 in the case of “preparation of mass riots”, resulting in the seizure of more than 250 thousand lei and other evidence.

“Law enforcement officials have grounds to suspect that the money collected was accumulated from illegal activities. It was to be used for recruitment, organization, transportation and remuneration of persons instigated to implement mass disorder actions,” according to a statement by the Prosecutor General’s Office (PG).

According to the PG, the searches also resulted in the seizure of draft notes containing telephone contacts of persons participating in the protests, mobile phones, an unregistered pneumatic pistol, pyrotechnic articles (firecrackers) and hemp-like plant mass. The evidence seized will be examined and cross-checked with other evidence in the criminal case file.

Earlier, PCCOCS prosecutors, together with police investigation officers, assigned suspect status to eight persons and seized 380,000 lei and other evidence, following early morning searches on Friday, November 4, in Balti, Chisinau, Drochia and Ungheni, in a file on the preparation of mass riots between September 18 and October 16, 2022, the Prosecutor General’s Office (PG) announced.

The eight suspects, including two women, are aged between 23 and 41 and live in Balti, Chisinau, Drochia and Ungheni districts. According to the PG, they are being investigated for allegedly preparing, contrary to the Law on assemblies, mass riots, including transporting several people, especially young people with an athletic body build, including previously convicted persons, from different regions of the country to Chisinau, instigated to commit new crimes and illegalities: “They were mainly co-opted in order to resist violently against law enforcement officers at demonstrations planned for the immediate future”.