A press conference was held today at the Kaunas Regional Prosecutor‘s Office. During the conference, Tomas Staniulis, Chief Prosecutor of the Organised Crime and Corruption Investigation Division of Kaunas Regional Prosecutor‘s Office, and Linas Burdulis, Head of the Pre-Trial Investigation Division of Kaunas Board of the Special Investigation Service (STT) have provided more information on the pre-trial investigation, that has been initiated yesterday, into corruption offenses that may have been committed in Kaunas City Municipality Administration.
As has been reported yesterday, the officers of Kaunas Board of the STT have initiated this pre-trial investigation as they suspected that the director of Kaunas City Municipality Administration has possibly accepted from the director of one private company a bribe for favouritism in concluding and administering contracts for construction and related work.
Yesterday, during the searches that were carried out at the places of residence and employment of both suspects, extremely large amounts of cash were found. A total of about a quarter of a million euros was found in the living and working premises of Vilius Šiliauskas, the director of Kaunas City Municipality Administration, who is one of the suspected persons. During the searches in the premises belonging to another suspected person, an even larger amount of cash – about 400,000 euros – was found. A total of about 600,000 euros was found and taken. Based on currently available data, it is suspected that the amount of the bribe could totalled to 140,000 euros. There are also data available indicating that one of the suspects was planning to leave the country soon. Both suspects were detained yesterday.
Tomas Staniulis, Chief Prosecutor of the Organised Crime and Corruption Investigation Division of Kaunas Regional Prosecutor‘s Office, confirmed today that, having evaluated the currently available pre-trial investigation data, the prosecutor‘s office intends to apply to a court for the imposition of the strictest supervision measure - arrest - on both suspected persons for a period of 3 months. The prosecutor also stated that, after this pre-trial investigation was reported, significant additional information was received. Therefore, the scope of the pre-trial investigation is already broader, and it cannot be excluded that the investigation will expand.
‘Yesterday, the procedural steps took 16 hours to complete. About 10 officers of the STT were involved in them. These exclusive amounts of money were found through the efforts of these officers, because the money was carefully hidden’, – Linas Burdulis, Head of the Pre-Trial Investigation Division of Kaunas Board of the STT, told about the work performed by the officers of the STT.
We remind once again that a person may be exempted from criminal liability for bribery if he has been required to give a bribe or has been provoked to give a bribe, and he, after having offered or promised, either directly or indirectly, by himself or through an intermediary, to give or pay a bribe, has voluntarily reported this to a law enforcement authority within the shortest possible time, but not later than until he was recognized as a suspect person.
Persons, who could have been required to give a bribe or who could have been provoked to give a bribe, and/or who may have information relevant to this investigation, are asked to contact the STT.
