Estonian court sentences former public officials involved in illegal document scheme

A court in Estonia's Harju county on Monday gave real jail terms to four former employees of the Estonian police and border guard board found guilty of involvement in a large-scale operation selling illegal documents.

Six co-defendants in the case received suspended sentences.

The police and border guard service's former officials were each handed down five-year sentences that included two months of real jail term, plus five-year probation periods and confiscation of their illegal proceeds.

The Estonian police and border guard board detected the illegal document scheme while conducting an in-house audit in 2015 and started to monitor the suspects. It was soon discovered that the illegal operation was run by a 66-year-old woman who had befriended several employees of the board.

Investigators established that clients of the criminal group -- mostly foreigners seeking Estonian citizenship or residence permits -- had been paying the Estonian officials not for particular documents but to ensure a smooth processing of their citizenship or residence applications.

The foreigners in need of residence permits, for instance, were registered as tenants at some of the officials' addresses.

The officials also took language and citizenship tests for their clients and accepted bribes in return for providing their clients with database information, receiving applications containing false information, and issuing documents based on false information.

The Estonian State Prosecutor's Office first broke the news about the illegal document scheme in October 2015.

Charges were brought against 12 suspects in the case, including four public officials, but the total number of people involved in the scheme, including buyers of the illegal documents, was many times higher.

source: Xinhua