Moldovan anti-corruption prosecutor's office provides new details on bank fraud scheme

Chisinau, 27 July /MOLDPRES/ - The Anti-corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA) and the National Anticorruption Centre (CNA) today unveiled new details on the scheme of fraud in the financial and banking sector at a news conference.

PA Head Viorel Morari has said that all the criminal files had been connected to a single procedure on money laundering and placement of illegal incomes in the legal sector and their investment in purchasing various goods and financial assets.

“Following investigations by anticorruption prosecutors, we found out that five economic agents members of the group of businessman Veaceslav Platon benefitted from loans worth 40 million dollars and 123 million lei. They money was transferred to a society which is under offshore companies’ jurisdiction. Subsequently, the money was transferred to Latvia to joint stock companies, registered in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, Russia, Ukraine, etc. The transfers were made electronically from the same electronic IP. To get the concerned loans, stocks and real estate of the commercial bank Moldindconbank, Asito insurance company and real estate from Russia were put in pledge,” Morari said.  

Also, the PA chief prosecutor noted that Orhei mayor Ilan Shor, who is presently detained for 30 days in a similar file, “is the accomplice of Platon and benefited from one billion lei as a result of dubious transactions carried out by the latter.”   

According to law-enforcers, based on the accumulated evidence, Moldovan prosecutors asked the competent authorities of Ukraine to extradite businessman Veaceslav Platon. He was detained by the Ukrainian intelligence services on 25 July, after being put on the wanted list by the Moldovan police on the same day in the morning.   

The businessman runs the risk of being sentenced to 8-15 years of imprisonment, with deprivation of the right to hold certain offices for five years.

(Reporter P. Beregoi, editor L. Alcaza)