Six arrested in connection to pension fund corruption case

The PIO sign (Tanjug, file)

Six arrested in connection to pension fund corruption case

BELGRADE -- The police took six persons to the Prosecutor for Organized Crime for questioning on Wednesday on suspicion that they illegally acquired at least RSD 70mn.

This happened through abuse of the suspects' official positions held at the state-run Pension and Disability Insurance Fund (PIO).

The six persons are suspected of taking part in an organized crime ring and making it possible for a large number of people to illegally obtain old age pension rights in the period from 2007 through 2014, in this way causing PIO to incur great losses, Prosecutor for Organized Crime Miljko Radisavljević told Tanjug.

Radisavljević said that a total of 58 such cases have been looked into and there is a reasonable suspicion that a total of RSD 62 million in pensions have been paid illegally and PIO incurred losses amounting to at least RSD 70 million.

The suspects charged their services and illegally acquired EUR 113,000 and over RSD 3.3 million, he added.

The prosecutor said that police are investigating about 250 more such cases where available information suggests that payments of pensions based on illegally acquired old age pension rights have caused PIO to incur losses of over EUR 3 million.

The persons taken for questioning today are Ivan Đinđić, Željko Antulov, Predrag Dejanović, Dejan Filipović, Sredoje Mirković, and Zorica Otrvić-Stamenković, Radisavljević told Tanjug.

The police have filed criminal charges against these persons and an order was issued to place them in detention for 48 hours based on a warrant by the Prosecutor’s Office, Radisavljević said, adding that they will be questioned during the...

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