Employees of a private enterprise in Vitebsk are suspected of stealing almost 130 tons of sugar

January 28, Minsk /BelTA correspondent/. Officials of one of Vitebsk's private trade and manufacturing unitary enterprises are suspected of stealing over 126 tons of granulated sugar from the Slutsk Sugar Refinery. This was reported to a BelTA correspondent by Veronika Posmetieva, an operative for particularly important cases of the Main Directorate for Combating Economic Crimes of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus. An agreement was concluded between OJSC "Slutsk Sugar Refinery" and a private enterprise for the storage of 1.2 thousand tons of granulated sugar in a rented warehouse. The release of products to various business entities from the Vitebsk warehouse was carried out exclusively on the documents of the Slutsk Refinery. According to the investigation, the perpetrators drew up knowingly false documents for the release of sugar to pseudo-entrepreneurial structures. They appropriated the money received from the sale of products. In total, from April to July 2010, the suspects, by prior conspiracy, using their official powers, stole over 126 tons of granulated sugar for a total amount exceeding Br300 million. The fact of theft was discovered by employees of the Department for the Disclosure of Serious Economic Crimes of the Department of Internal Affairs of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee and the Department for Combating Economic Crimes of the Zheleznodorozhny District Department of Internal Affairs of Vitebsk. A criminal case has been initiated against the officials of the private enterprise under Part 4 of Article 210 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus ("Theft by abuse of official powers, committed on a particularly large scale"). They face punishment in the form of imprisonment from 5 to 12 years. -0-