3 years and 7 months in prison for four wagons with wood stolen from a forest in Bihor. The thief was chased

Bihor. He was not found by the police to be taken to the Oradea Penitentiary, where he will serve his sentence, which became final at the end of April.

35-year-old Levente Attila Balaj, known as Moțocan, is on his third sentence for stealing trees, having been imprisoned twice so far. And twice he was released before the deadline.

They promised vouchers for the stolen wood

Levente Balaj was accused of having committed the acts in March 2018. Convinced by a local from Curtuișeni, Erno Rezmuves, to steal wood, sell it and share the money, Moțocan accompanied him for four nights in a forest from the edge of the village, in the place called “Gorvei”.

While Rezmuves cut acacias with a chainsaw, Balaj loaded the thickest part of the trees into a cart. They sold the stolen wood to some villagers and collected 400 lei for each shipment. The buyers later claimed that the two assured them that they were working legally, in the forest, and promised to bring them the receipt for the wood. Which, obviously, never happened again.

The thinner part of the illegally cut trees was taken and taken home by another man, Samuel Kocze. Called Boby, he had participated a few days before in two other thefts in the same forest, together with Erno Rezmuves. The investigators determined that, in total, the three cut down and stole 128 acacia trees worth 6,300 lei, from seven places.

“In each location, between 9 and 44 stumps were found, with a diameter between 10 and 34 cm, which did not show a cut mark, being cut at a distance of 10-15 cm from the ground. On the spot, traces of sawdust resulting from the cutting of trees at stumps, branches from illegally cut and stolen trees, traces of sawdust specific to the sectioning of trees at different lengths, as well as traces of shoes and carts, were discovered in the the indictment of the Marghita Prosecutor’s Office.

Three convictions for stealing trees

In front of the investigators, both Moțocan and Remuves and Kocze admitted their deeds. The last two were sentenced to suspended prison terms, while in the case of Levente Balaj the judges dictated a sentence of 3 years and 7 months of detention, with execution, for complicity in illegal cutting of trees and theft of wood.

The courts took into account the fact that, in 2021, the man had also been convicted of stealing trees, to a year and 7 months in prison. He was paroled with four months of his sentence left.

Balaj’s record also contained a sentence of 2 years and 6 months in prison, given in 2014, also for forestry crimes. And then he was released from prison before the full execution of his sentence.

Source: Bihon.ro