The Riga City Court, in a criminal case concerning large-scale fraud, has sentenced two former drivers of former Riga mayor Nils U\u0161akovs (S) to prison terms and ordered them to pay substantial compensation, reports Latvijas Av\u012bze.<\/p>\n
U\u0161akovs\u2019 former drivers Andris Saul\u012btis and Juris Kukulis were charged with large-scale fraud against the municipal company \u201cR\u012bgas satiksme,\u201d while the company\u2019s former Technical Support Director, Ingvars \u0160nikvalds, was charged with aiding them. Saul\u012btis and Kukulis were sentenced to four and two and a half years in prison respectively, while \u0160nikvalds received five years of probation supervision. All three have been ordered jointly and severally to compensate \u201cR\u012bgas satiksme\u201d for the defrauded amount \u2014 approximately \u20ac247,000.<\/p>\n
The case against these individuals was separated from the so-called Riga City Council fictitious employees case. According to the court ruling, Saul\u012btis had been involved in fraudulent activities several years before the coalition of the parties \u201cSaska\u0146a\u201d and \u201cGods kalpot R\u012bgai,\u201d led by U\u0161akovs, came to power in Riga City Council.<\/p>\n
Saul\u012btis allegedly reached an agreement with the now-deceased \u201cR\u012bgas satiksme\u201d employee Igors Volkin\u0161teins that he would be formally employed by the company as a locksmith but would not perform any actual work duties.<\/p>\n
Saul\u012btis was hired in April 2001 and, despite not working in reality, remained officially employed until January 2019.<\/p>\n
During this period, he received approximately 102,000 euros in salary payments from the municipal company. Including mandatory state social insurance contributions and personal income tax payments, \u201cR\u012bgas satiksme\u2019s\u201d total expenses amounted to 185,405 euros. According to the newspaper, Volkin\u0161teins informed \u0160nikvalds about the fictitious employment of Saul\u012btis, and \u0160nikvalds allegedly \u201ccovered\u201d the scheme.<\/p>\n
In a similar manner, Kukulis was hired as a locksmith at \u201cR\u012bgas satiksme\u201d in January 2015. At the time, he was one of U\u0161akovs\u2019 drivers and Saul\u012btis\u2019 colleague. Kukulis was also reportedly placed in the position by Volkin\u0161teins, with \u0160nikvalds being informed. Kukulis was fictitiously employed for four years, receiving approximately 34,000 euros in salary, while the total costs to \u201cR\u012bgas satiksme,\u201d including taxes, amounted to 61,363 euros.<\/p>\n
The accused have denied their guilt, claiming they were hired as \u201cundercover employees\u201d tasked with monitoring theft of fuel, tools and parts. However, the company reportedly received no written reports from either of them regarding any violations, the newspaper notes.<\/p>\n
By the decision of the court of first instance, all three defendants were found guilty of fraud. The verdict may be appealed before the Riga Regional Court.<\/p>\n
Read also: Nils U\u0161akovs leaves the board of the Saska\u0146a party<\/a><\/p>\n Follow us on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0X<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Riga City Court, in a criminal case concerning large-scale fraud, has sentenced two former drivers of former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[91],"tags":[332,15971,169,15972,168,15973,15974,15975],"class_list":["post-24239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-riga","tag-featured","tag-fictious-employment","tag-latvia","tag-nils-usakovs","tag-riga","tag-riga-city-court","tag-rigas-satiksme","tag-salary"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}