The Central Investigation Board of the Special Investigation Service (STT) is conducting a large-scale pre-trial investigation on alleged corruption in the fields of territorial planning and state supervision of construction. More than 150 criminal offences of bribery, graft, trading in influence, illicit enrichment and money laundering are being investigated. The investigation is supervised, organised and led by prosecutors from the Organised Crime and Corruption Investigation Division of the Vilnius Regional Prosecutor’s Office.
The data gathered during the pre-trial investigation now give rise to a reasonable suspicion that civil servants of the institutions responsible for the drafting, coordination and approval of construction and spatial planning documents may have demanded bribes from real estate developers, builders and other concerned persons through intermediaries. As suspected, favourable decisions were adopted on various real estate sites, building permits, project coordination, publicity, recognition of buildings suitable for operation, etc., for possible illegal remuneration.
Circumstances for more than 50 different construction sites are currently being investigated.
It is suspected that dozens of people may have committed these offences. The corruption offences are being investigated in relation to possible illegal actions by civil servants and persons equivalent to them of the Vilnius City Municipal Administration, the Lithuanian Association to People with Disabilities, the State Territorial Planning and Construction Inspectorate under the Ministry of the Environment, the State Labour Inspectorate, the National Public Health Center under the Ministry of Health, and the National Land Service under the Ministry of Agriculture.
