23 October 2002
Several top-ranking customs officers in Brest face criminal charges
Criminal charges were brought against several top-ranking officers of the Brest Customs House as a result of an inspection conducted recently by the State Control Committee's Department of Financial Investigations
(DFI).
On the night of October 18, an inspection group, which consisted of officers of the State Control Committee and the Brest Border Control Unit's internal security department, and was led personally by DFI Director Anatoly Gromovich, stopped a Warsaw-Moscow train, which had just passed the Brest customs, and ordered all the baggage
unloaded and re-weighed. The inspection, which lasted for some 13 hours, established that the Belarusian Customs had been paid $144.000 less than it should have been, a DFS official told BelaPAN.
Mr. Gromovich, formerly deputy chief of the KGB office for the Brest region, met with State Control Committee Chairman Anatoly Tozik on Monday to discuss the results of the inspection. They decided to submit a report to the head of state.
The issue will be under discussion at a conference that Prime Minister Gennady Novitsky plans to hold on October 25 during his trip to the Brest region. Participating in the conference will be State Customs Committee Chairman Aleksandr Shpilevsky and Aleksandr Pavlovsky, chairman of the State Border Troops Committee. The premier is expected to visit the customs checkpoints Kozlovichi, Varshavsky
Most, Domachevo and Peschatka at Belarus' Polish border.
http://brestonline.com/en/news/news295.html