Employees of the Investigation Service of the Ministry of Finance have detained Davit Tabidze, the former Executive Director of the Legal Entity of Public Law (LEPL) Municipal Development Fund of Georgia, on charges of abuse of official authority.

As announced at a briefing at the Financial Ministry’s Investigation Service, the Fund’s Programme Manager and Project Manager were also arrested in connection with this case; they cooperated fully with the investigation. The court imposed bail as a preventive measure against them.

“The heads of Lagi Capital LLC have been arrested on charges of fraudulently appropriating GEL 9,365,801 allocated from the Municipal Development Fund for the rehabilitation of 30 kindergartens, and legalising GEL 1,211,000 in illegal proceeds.

The investigation has established that they possessed information that the advance payment requests submitted by Lagi Capital LLC during the period from July 2023 to May 2024 were unsubstantiated and only partially secured. The named individuals abused their official authority and, with the intention of conferring advantage, even though the advance received by the company in July 2023 had not been spent for its intended purpose, nevertheless issued unsubstantiated advances totalling GEL 11,218,380 to Lagi Capital LLC for kindergarten rehabilitation in 2023-2024, of which the heads of Lagi Capital LLC fraudulently appropriated GEL 9,365,801.

The investigation is being carried out under Articles 332, Part 1; 180, Parts 2 and 3; 194, Parts 2 and 3; and 362, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of Georgia, which stipulates imprisonment for a term of nine to twelve years.

The investigation remains ongoing and intensive, aiming to identify others involved in the crime and taking appropriate action,” the Investigation Service of the Ministry of Finance announced.