Disciplinary proceedings launched against Revenue Service's top customs officials Zukuls and Rubene

  • 2021-07-29
  • LETA/TBT Staff

RIGA - The State Revenue Service's Director General Ieva Jaunzeme has launched disciplinary proceedings against Raimonds Zukuls, head of the Revenue Service's Customs Board, and Marika Rubene, head of the Customs Board's Legal and Process Supervision Department.

The disciplinary case deals with the necessity of assessment of internal risk management at the Customs Board in order to prevent corruptive deals at the institution in the future.

Neither Zukuls nor Rubene have been suspended from their jobs as there is no reason to believe that their actions may harm the institution.

The disciplinary proceedings were opened following a report submitted by a commission set up by Jaunzeme to investigate the detention of 29 customs officers at Terehova border checkpoint by the Revenue Service's Internal Security Administration and the Corruption Prevention Bureau.

"It is important to thoroughly investigate all circumstances of what happened at Terehova border checkpoint to avert the risk of corruption at the institution in the future. That is why I have opened disciplinary proceedings against the two top customs officials, so the commission could objectively assess their responsibility," explained Jaunzeme.

The Revenue Service is the first public institution in Latvia to introduce an all-embracing system for vetting employees on an annual basis.

19 disciplinary cases have been opened at the Revenue Service since the detention of customs officers at Terehova border checkpoint. 13 employees have left the service.

As reported, 29 customs officials were detained on corruption suspicion at Terehova border checkpoint this past April. As many as 21 of them have been assigned the status of a suspect in the case. Restrictions unrelated with deprivation of freedom have been imposed on the detained persons.

Terehova on the Latvian-Russian border is a border controls and customs checkpoint. Information from LETA's archives show that also in previous years border guards and customs officers working in this checkpoint have been detained for various offenses.