The Investigation Officers of the Chisinau Police Department in joint efforts with the employees of the National Investigation Inspectorate of the PGI annihilated a criminal group specialized in burglary and theft from dwellings.

The police has been watching the illegal activity of individuals for about a month, time which allowed the law enforcement officials to gather evidence demonstrating the suspects' participation of in about 10 burglaries of luxury homes in Chisinau. The losses and damage the victims suffered amounts to more than 10 million lei.

The members of the criminal gang include three men aged between 30 and 33 from Ukraine and the Transnistrian region.

Following their investigations, the police found out that suspects had been renting a two-storey house in Chisinau for a month and committed break and entering into several apartments stealing gold jewelry, money, icons and worship artifacts, firearms and other goods. Also, the members of the gang had a well-defined scheme, each of the individuals having their own role. Once they identified the apartment at night, they would study the lock type so as to agree on the most effective opening method, and would install camouflaged cameras to monitor the time of homeowners' departure and return. Similarly, the offenders used advanced technical equipment to disable alarm systems installed in homes.

Thus, due to their special investigative actions, the law enforcement forces caught the members of the criminal gang in the act of committing an offence, and namely while they were stealing from two apartments on the Ştefan cel Mare bd.

When the police searched the offenders' cars and the luxury dwelling that they rented in Chisinau, several previously stolen goods were found and retrieved, as were the utensils (specially customized by someone in the city of Odessa) that the suspects used to open locked doors.

A member of the criminal gang is deemed one of the best specialists in the criminal underworld for his skills in opening door locks and safes of all kinds. The man has been committing illegal actions throughout the CIS member countries where several criminal gangs requested his services.

All the members of the gang have criminal records, having committed several counts of break-and-enter of luxury houses on the territory of the Russian Federation and Ukraine, but each time they managed to escape the police.

The suspects are detained for 30 days, and if found guilty, they may be sentenced to a 7 to 12 years jail term.

Special investigative measures are currently underway so as to establish the complicity of the criminal group to other similar cases registered in Moldova.