Investigators have seized hundreds of thousands of euros’ worth of assets from four members of Estonia’s security services who are charged with corruption, ERR, the country’s public broadcaster reports.
Two the men were arrested in late May. All four worked for the Information Board, one of the agencies that safeguards state secrets. They are charged with embezzlement and, according to an earlier report, two are accused of publishing state secrets.
Investigators confiscated “vehicles, cash, bank accounts and gold” from the men, who “had access to funds used to pay foreign agents and were responsible for state procurements for the protection of embassies, which were classified and far harder [for] authorities to detect corruption” according to ERR.
“[T]he four have probably pocketed hundreds of thousands of euros that may have been earmarked for secret procurements or, more likely, funds aimed at paying to foreign spies,” the Baltic Business Times wrote in late May, citing domestic media.
While a member of the Internal Security Service in 1997, one of the men, a lawyer, illegally sat a law exam for a colleague, reported ERR, again citing Estonian media. Both men left the service after being caught, it said.
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