Briefing of Mr. Mamuka Chelidze, the Acting Director of the Central Criminal Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs
One of the main priorities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is the effective fight against organized crime. This time, the Ministry has disclosed an organized criminal group, which inflicted 136 000 GEL loss to one of the companies.
As a result of joint operative-investigative measures carried out by the officers of the MIA Central Criminal Police Department and the Anti-Corruption Agency of the State Security Service, in cooperation with Tbilisi Transport Company six members of the organized criminal group have been detained: R.A. (DoB: 1986). G. Kh (DoB: 1975). N. Ch. (DoB: 1988), I. M. (DoB: 1992), G.M (DoB: 1989) and D.S. (DoB: 1960).
The detainees are accused of property damage through deception that has caused a substantial damage, also illegal access to the computer system by a group’s conspiracy and unauthorized modification of computer data.
The sentence for the mentioned crime is the term of imprisonment for 6 years.
Investigation revealed that the criminal group had been operating since the beginning of this year and caused property damage to the company “Metro Service +”.
It should be noted that the "Metro Service +" offers the citizens "Metromoney" cards for transport services and transfers money paid by the cards` users to the respective transport companies.
Intensive investigative actions conducted by the law enforcers revealed that the detainees managed to get unauthorized access to the computer system of the mentioned company and virtually reflected the money on "Metromoney" cards. Subsequently, in exchange for a certain amount of money they delivered cards for the temporary use to various individuals - mostly tourists, who used them to pay travel costs.
It should be noted that the members of the group had distributed criminal functions among each other. In particular, the organizers of the group - D. S. and R.A. guided the entire process of crime and distributed money among the group members; G.M, G. Kh. and N. Ch. attracted clients in the surrounding area of Rike-Narikala cableway and received money from them, while I.M. along with R.A. virtually reflected money on the cards via the relevant computer software downloaded on the mobile phone.
With this illegal action, members of the criminal group, by using only one card a day misappropriated approximately 200-300 GEL; in total, the amount of money artificially reflected on the cards since the beginning of 2019 until their detention has reached 136 000 GEL.
During the personal search of detainees and of their apartments large number of “Metromoney” cards with the money illegally deposited on them have been seized. Also, the computer device used for virtual deposition of money has been seized.
The investigation is in progress under the I part of the sub-paragraphs "a" and "b" of the III part of the Article 185, the sub-paragraph "a" of the II part of the Article 284 and the sub-paragraph "a" of the III part of the Article 286 of the Criminal Code of Georgia.
