An incredible matter in the Vilnius police: a woman’s fraud has not been noticed for more than a year

Saulius Gagas, the head of the Vilnius County Police Chief’s Police Station, was the first to notice that large sums of money were being transferred from the police account to a former employee who had been working in the Police Department for half-year. He shared information about the suspicions with the then Commissioner General of Police and a pre-trial investigation into the incident was immediately launched.

During the meeting, not only was the information confirmed, but it was also clear that Snieguolė Bartkevičienė, the former Head of the Settlement Branch, who later served as Deputy Head of the Finance Department, transferred unreasonably different amounts to her accounts in two banks for more than a year.

According to the investigation data, 18 thousand LTL were unreasonably transferred from the Vilnius police to the accounts of S. Bartkevičienė. 231.18 Eur.

At the time, Ms Bartkevičienė, who was prosecuted for misappropriation of high-value foreign assets and abuse of power, offered an incredible excuse: she had never reviewed her accounts and therefore did not realize that it had been transferred a lot more money to her from the police.

However, such excuses did not convince the prosecutor of the Vilnius Regional Public Prosecutor’s Office, Remigijus Matevičius, who handed over the material collected during the pre-trial investigation to the Vilnius Regional Court. Judge Virginija Pakalnytė-Tamošiūnaitė, who knew the details of the criminal case and questioned many witnesses, announced that S. Bartkevičienė’s guilt had been proven with indisputable data not only due to abuse of official position, but also due to misappropriation of goods.

According to the court, S. Bartkevičienė misappropriated high-value foreign police property in its possession and as a result the principles of the rule of law, legality, justice, transparency and loyalty declared by the state were violated: “With these actions, she it undoubtedly discredited the name of a public official. The prestige of the Lithuanian Police Chief Commissariat and Police Department as a state institution clearly discredited the name of a public official and caused significant harm to the state by violating the principles of supremacy, legality and justice, transparency and loyalty declared by the state ”.

Although Ms Bartkevičienė faced a real custodial sentence for her crimes, the court decided not to imprison her because “a short period of time, almost four years, had elapsed since the commission of the crimes”, during which she did not commit no crime. new crimes and compensated the Vilnius police.

“The danger to the personality of the accused is not high, in addition, it must be appreciated that the separation of the accused from work and family can adversely affect their social ties, so that the objectives of the sanction will not be achieved with a real incarceration and isolation from society, “V. Pakalnytė-Tamošiūnaitė.

The court ruled that S. Bartkevičienė would have to pay a fine of 180 MGL to the state budget: 9 thousand. EUR. If the convicted person does not agree with the sentence, they will have the opportunity to appeal against it.

Based on the data in the case, it was established that S. Bartkevičien actividad’s activity was of interest to the Vilnius County Police leadership in 2017. In late December, when Police Chief S. Gagas saw in the accounting documents that 1.6 thousand had been transferred to a financier who had not been working on the commission for six months just before the New Year. EUR.

“S. Bartkevičienė worked in the Finance Department as Deputy Head, but after centralization she was transferred to the Police Department, where she worked as an advisor to the Accounting Council, – S. Gagas spoke during the judicial questioning. – December 29 Me They gave to sign payroll orders for December Since it was the end of the year and the accountants wanted to fix the annual accounts faster, I was in a hurry to sign the orders, I won’t say who did it now, but it seems that S. Bartkevičienė also called and asked. to sign. After signing the orders, I went through the list and saw S. Bartkevičienė’s last name on it. This made me suspicious, because she was no longer working for the Vilnius police at that time. “

The police chief said he immediately contacted the Accounting Board and instructed his staff to verify if it was a technical error and why the money was being transferred to the employee who was no longer working.

“I also asked to verify if there were any more such orders,” Gag said. – The next day I was informed that S. Bartkevičienė returned 1.6 thousand. EUR. As I did not receive any information, on January 2. I checked the payment details in detail for five months, when S. Bartkevičienė was no longer working in the Vilnius police, and I noticed that they transferred money to him regularly, which ranged from 800 to 1.6 thousand. EUR. The transfers indicated that it was a salary or an advance. Having identified said transfers, I suspected that it was a criminal offense, so I wrote a personnel report, informed the General Commissioner of Police to establish such facts and requested an assessment and decision according to their competence ”.

According to Gag, the sheets were later found to indicate one amount, and in fact quite different amounts were received: “With one person’s name, the money was transferred elsewhere.”

“When I found out about this fact, I requested an investigation,” stressed the police chief.

At the time, S. Bartkevičienė did not admit guilt for the misappropriation of high-value foreign property and claimed that he tried to do his best job.

“I don’t understand how the money got into my personal account,” he explained in court.

The defendant said that he “did not realize there was too much money in the account.”

“I would never check my account, if I had checked it, I would have noticed,” said S. Bartkevičienė. – I did not open an account or look, I only checked the balance of my money going to the store. And I had no doubts about the larger amounts, because my husband also transferred money to my account. “

It wasn’t until 2017 that you first learned about the unjustified transfer of money to your account. at the end of the year, when another financier called and announced that a “large amount” had been transferred to the account, which is indicated in Vilnius police records.

“At that time, he was already working on the structure of the Police Department,” said S. Bartkevičienė. – After checking the bank details, I saw that in December, more than 1.6 thousand. Eur, so I returned this money urgently. “

The woman admitted that, although she was fired from the Vilnius police, she continued to receive a salary: “After the inspection, it turned out that I received a salary from both the Police Department and the Vilnius Police at the same time, but I did not realize it. because I didn’t check my accounts. “

When the possible waste of property became clear, S. Bartkevičienė was removed from office. At the beginning of the pre-trial investigation, he returned more than 11,000 to the police. Eur, another 7 thousand. she paid in court during the criminal case, so the police withdrew her claim for damages.