The Ministry of Internal Affairs has arrested six individuals for membership in the ‘criminal underworld’.
Head of the Main Division of the Fight against Organised Crime Mamuka Chelidze said at today’s briefing that the detainees were involved in criminal activities supporting the 'criminal underworld'.
The criminals were arrested in Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Tsalka and accused of membership in the ‘criminal underworld’, organising ‘criminal discussions’ and supporting organised crime.
They were cooperating with thieves-in-law – individuals who manage in any form and/or organise the activities of the criminal underworld or a certain group of criminal individuals.
Working with Georgian thieves-in-law, Jeiran Kintsurashvili and Mindia Goradze, who were living in Turkey, intimidated residents of Tsalka and financially extorted them. The sums illegally received by the criminals were sent to the mother of another thief-in-law, Giorgi Poladashvili living in France in August.
The Georgian government has increased the severity of punishments for activity in the criminal underworld. Amendments to the law on combating organised crime and racketeering were passed by the Georgian parliament on April 19.
The new law has widened the list of criminal activities that are punishable and also defined participation in criminal discussion, as wells as support to the criminal underworld as crimes punishable by three to fifteen years.
39 people have been arrested for being members or being connected to the ‘criminal underworld’ in Georgia during the last nine months, two of whom are thieves-in-law.
Over the same time period, 127 Georgians involved in organised crime abroad and 12 Georgian thieves-in-law have also been arrested in France and Greece.