Police Arrests Head of Construction Company for Fraud
By Tea Mariamidze
Thursday, October 4
Investigative Service of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia has released a statement, confirming they arrested Head of the Construction Company Sveti Givi Jibladze and also one more person with the charges of fraud.
"Investigation Service of the Ministry of Finance of Georgia, on the basis of a court verdict on October 3 of the current year, arrested Heads of the construction company Sveti with the charges of criminal offense under by Article 180 (3) of the Criminal Code of Georgia (fraud, misappropriation of the property of another person), the statement reads.
According to the statement, on May 29, 2018, on the basis of the joint statement of developers of the company Sveti, an investigation was launched on the fact of misappropriation of large amounts of money paid by citizens to purchase residential apartments.
The agency explains that the detained persons, using the official position, illegally obtained money from the developers by fraudulent ways.
For this purpose, the developer company Sveti announced the beginning of large-scale housing construction projects in 2016, but the company had no corresponding permits for construction. In order to attract customers, active advertising campaigns, including using social networks, were launched which attracted local and foreign customers who wanted to purchase flats, the agency said.
Investigative Service statement says that only through one construction site, the accused people misappropriated GEL 3,356,385.
"More than 5,000 investigative actions were carried out in the investigation process. Among them, more than 2000 customers of the company were interviewed, the agency said, adding at this stage, the investigative actions are actively underway to identify all possible offenses committed by the company during the building process of the residential flats and to identify other persons involved in the offense.
Company Sveti was building residential houses in Tbilisi, on Chkondideli and Mirtskhulava streets.
In addition to Tbilisi, the company announced the construction of the "Olympic City" in 2016 at the Tbilisi Sea. The company sold the apartments before the construction started but as it was revealed later, the territory of the construction did not belong to Sveti Group.
A few months ago, it was reported that the company Sveti was selling its shares. The affected developers started a hunger strike at the main office of the company, asking for the completion of the constructions as soon as possible.
The developers held another protest rally at Investigative Service of the Ministry of Finance on October 3. They called on the ministry to give Sveti shares to other construction companies, which will ensure timely completion of all projects.
