Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies

KNAB shows in its inforgraph that the criminal prosecution should be launched against an employee of a derived public person. KNAB did not comment on the structure represented by the suspect, but, according to the information at the disposal of LETA, the suspect is an employee of the Institute of Food Safety, Animal Health and Environment Bior. Bior is a state scientific institute, supervised by the Agricultural Ministry.

Bior did not comment on the information because the institute has not been named in KNAB press statement, said Bior spokeswoman Irena Berzina.

KNAB asks to press charges against the three persons for large-scale fraud.

The investigation has discovered that in 2011, the employee of the institute had obtained information about a procurement. In cooperation with two Lithuanian citizens, a shell company was established that won the procurement with an overpriced offer and defrauded EUR 219,737 from the state budget. Also, a similar scenario was used in 2012, defrauding EUR 612,681 from the state.

LETA learned that the criminal process has been launched several years ago on a procurement of glass eels. In 2015 KNAB sent the case to the Prosecutor General’s Office, charging officials with fraud and abuse of authority. A sentence has already been made at the first instance court, but LETA on Wednesday did not manage to learn more about the case.

In 2013, the Agricultural Ministry audited Bior in relation to the procurement of glass eels as it turned out that Latvia had paid to a Czech company at least four times more for glass eels than other EU member states. The highest price in Europe had been EUR 0.227 per piece, while Latvia paid EUR 0.953.

According to information published on the internet website of the Procurement Supervision Bureau, Czech-registered company Marten Business Group won tenders for glass eels in 2011 and 2012. The sums to be paid in the agreement were LVL 205,020 (EUR 291,717) in 2011 and LVL 576,800 (EUR 820,712) in 2012.

In 2013 it turned out that Marten Business Group is a shell company owned by an off shore company in Cyprus and is not doing any actual business.

The Czech company was the only bidder in 2011, while in 2012 there were two bidders, but Marten Business Group won with the cheapest offer.