Finland Times

 

File picture of former mayor of Vantaa city Jukka Peltomäki. Photo – Lehtikuva.

A former mayor of Vantaa city, along with eight others, has been suspected of embezzling about half a million euro through bribery, money laundering and unsecured loan during his tenure as deputy mayor and mayor, police said.

 

Sources in the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) after the pre-investigation said that the former mayor, Jukka Peltomäki of Social Democratic Party (Suomen Sosialidemokraattinen Puolue) reportedly was involved in the outrageous misappropriation of money while discharging duties as the deputy mayor and mayor of the city from 2005 to 2011.

 

Police suspected that the irregularities took place in about 20 formula projects and 10 construction projects including the construction projects at Marja-Vantaa city area.

 

Investigation is going on in these projects now, said police.

 

Police also suspected that some portions of the money were given to other people as a part of the misdeed.

 

He was also accused of drawing a big amount of money as loan from an architecture office named Forma-Futura without proper guarantee and did not pay the money back.

 

The former mayor got the loan from the Architecture company owned by Leila Tuominen easily as Peltomäki had worked with some projects where Tuominen also worked as a consultant, said sources.

 

The bribery allegation brought against Peltomäki said that he had been living in the apartment of Forma-Futuras for a long time while his children lived in another apartment of the same company by paying a poor amount of rent.

 

“There are some significant irregularities detected in these projects at certain areas,” the NBI team leader Veli Matti Räsänen told STT, adding that the misappropriations took place from the year 2005 to 2011 when he was holding the key posts of the city corporation.

 

Räsänen said that there are number of reasons behind suspecting the former city boss and pointed out that he drew hundred thousands of unsecured loan and did not pay back.

 

The NBI official said that the former mayor, along with eight others, is also suspected of money laundering and the pre-investigations in this regards were already completed.

Peltomäki and Tuominen, however, denied all the allegations brought against them.