Although the articles of the indictment differ, if the damages claimed by the prosecution in each case are added up, the total figure exceeds €17 million.
The Internal Security Bureau started investigating irregularities in the construction of the eastern border in 2018. The Bureau referred a total of seven cases for prosecution. All reached the courts.
The first one does not concern the construction of the border, but the equipment - the purchase of sensors. Igors Žuravļovs and Valerijs Širokovs, former representatives of the State Border Guard's procurement commission, are accused of asking contractors for bribes - 6% of the contract amount - or threatening failure in the procurement. According to De Facto, two representatives of BST Engineering agreed to pay, according to the investigation. Other entrepreneurs also paid bribes.
The Prosecutor's Office does not disclose the names of the accused, but mentions that five natural persons have paid bribes on behalf of legal persons.
According to Santa Berga, prosecutor of the Riga Court District Prosecutor's Office, three of them are accused of carrying out large-scale fraud with the support of State Border Guard officers.
According to De Facto, in the fraud episode, the investigators' suspicions fell on the representatives of the now-liquidated company "STG Grupa", Jevgēnijs Golubkovs and Kristīne Galviņa. It is suspected that in the procurement of seismic sensors in 2017, they competed with non-compliant equipment and arranged with Jānis Dzelme, then working for DATI Group, to participate in the procurement with the same sensors, but at a price almost 100 thousand more expensive - he later allegedly bought the sensors from Golubkovs and Galviņa's company.
Žuravļovs and Širokovs, probably knowing that the sensors were noncompliant, did not tell the other members of the Commission. The fraud resulted in material damage to the State of more than one million euros.
Another similar criminal case involves representatives of various companies - including Rolands Zutis, a board member of R1 Security, and Jānis Jurķelis, a board member of Consumo, as well as entrepreneurs Pavels Ņestjorkins and Kristaps Kļaviņš - being tried for fraud. Three former employees of the Border Guard Procurement Commission are accused of misconduct in public office by allowing the supply of inappropriate sensors. They are the aforementioned Širokovs, who is now an information management specialist in the Border Guard, Lauris Bružiks, who until last year was a member of the procurement committee and is now a senior specialist, and Vitālijs Makarovs.
Guntis Pujāts, the head of the State Border Guard, told De Facto that none of the cases has a judgment that has entered into legal force. Pujāts also criticized the progress of the investigation:
"The investigations were carried out in an overly aggressive manner, which seemed more like an end in itself - to start as many cases as possible, rather than to pursue the interests of the state."
In a third case, former State Border Guard chief Normunds Garbars is on trial for failing to supervise the construction of border infrastructure. Here, the prosecutor's office claims that the official's negligence caused damage of more than €5.4 million.
The highest damage of €10.1 million is claimed in another case. Two former border guards, Uldis Zemmers and Jolanta Ķikute, are accused of abuse of office and, according to the indictment, accepted a bribe of €1,000.
Valērijs Bluss, a member of the board of "VTV14" and a construction supervisor, and Māris Peilāns, the manager and Kaspars Macāns, the project manager of "Igate" construction company, are also charged with fraud on a large scale, while the latter two are also charged with bribery.
The case involves seven construction contracts from 2015 to 2019. As a result, a cheaper fence with a smaller wire diameter and coating than expected was built, as well as related footpath infrastructure.
Suspicions of improper supply of barbed wire are the basis of another case involving the head of DN Sistēmas, Juris Teivāns, and four employees of the Provisions State Agency, including the current head Ramona Innusa and her deputy Oskars Dzirkalis, who declined to comment. "Given that the court proceedings are ongoing, we do not see an opportunity to comment at this time so as not to prejudice the proceedings," Innusa told the program.
The damage caused to the State in this case, according to the prosecutor's office, exceeds 373 thousand euros.
180 thousand has been claimed in the only case in which a first instance judgment has been handed down, although this has now been appealed - for misappropriation of felled trees.
Last March, a court in Rezekne found Ivars Galiņš, the owner of Avoti G, guilty of cutting down trees on the border with Russia as a subcontractor of the Igate construction company and illegally selling them, transferring the money to his company, even though the trees cut down in the border zone belong to the state. Galiņš does not admit guilt. The case is now being heard by the Latgale Regional Court.
The State Audit Office also once pointed out problems with timber accounting in the early stages of the border construction. The audit found that trees had been felled since 2015, but the first time it was mentioned in the books was in 2019.
The last court case also mentions the company Avoti G, but as a witness. The company has felled and disposed of €29.7 thousand worth of trees, which has been claimed as a loss. However, it is not the felling company that is accused, but the representatives of the procurement committee at the Provisions State Agency, who drafted the regulations in 2016.
Santa Berga, a prosecutor at the Riga Court District Prosecutor's Office, describes the nature of the charges as follows: "As a result of the inaction of the accused state officials, the documents prepared for the procurement, including the technical specification of the contract, did not provide for the handling of wood that is part of the overgrowth. According to the documentation, all overgrowth was to be removed, waste was to be disposed of, stumps were to be uprooted and the border strip was to be leveled. This allowed the construction contractors to decide how the overgrowth was removed."
The defendants - Jānis Brambats, Inga Ābrāma, Gunārs Liepiņš and Sandra Krilova - pleaded not guilty.
Looking back at the early stages of the Eastern Border, all parties involved now acknowledge that the Border Guard did not have the experience and expertise to do the job.
"Of course, at that time, looking at the situation, the whole border was, let's say, one big jungle," the Minister of the Interior commented to De Facto. "At that time nobody had that understanding and experience. Clearly, it seemed most logical at the time that the State Border Guard would implement it itself."
Pujāts, the head of the State Border Guard, stressed: "If the [State] Border Guard had not taken the initiative in 2014, then nothing would have been built on the Russian border at all. It was an initiative to take care of national security, for which a number of people are now having to pay quite a heavy price. The legal process, the legal proceedings - it has been more than five years. Is that reasonable, is that adequate?"
Finally, De Facto reports that the part of the infrastructure on the border with Russia, which was built by the road construction company Igate before it was stopped because of corruption allegations, has still not been put into operation. This is about two hundred kilometers of border infrastructure. Legal solutions on how to terminate the contract in the best interest of the State have yet to be found.
