British experts start special investigation at three Moldovan banks

Chisinau, 11 February /MOLDPRES/ - Experts of the company Kroll Associates UK Limited (Kroll), registered in the United Kingdom, today started a special investigation at Banca de Economii (Savings Bank), Banca Sociala (Social Bank) and Unibank, suspected of fraudulent transactions worth several billions of lei, the press service of the National Bank of Moldova (BNM) has reported.

The foreign experts arrived in Chisinau on 10 February and the investigation’s results will be made public in four weeks.

At the first stage of the investigation, “the company will analyse the suspicious transactions from these banks, people involved, will establish which were the financial flows and where they were transferred, and will come up with proposals on developing long-term strategies, which will allow Moldova recover them,” the National Bank has informed previously.

According to a BNM press release, spread in late 2014, in past November, „a number of transactions in rather big amounts”, worth several billions lei, between the Banca de Economii, Banca Social and Unibank, were made.

„The evolution of the banking sector’s indicators in November 2014 was significantly distorted by transactions of particularly large sums of money at Banca de Economii, Banca Sociala and Unibank,” BNM said. The assets of Banca Sociala grew by 14 billion lei, of the Banca de Economii rose by 2.37 billion lei, whereas the ones of Unibank dropped by 4.77 billion lei.

The increase of Banca Sociala's total assets was especially due to an increase of the “other assets” group by 17.793 million lei, following the assigning of credits to a foreign legal entity. BNM informed than that it had grounded reasons to consider this transaction as suspicious and notified the law-enforcement bodies, in order to carry out the needed investigations. BNM also initiated the necessary procedures in court, in order to cancel this transaction.

BNM Governor Dorin Dragutanu has recently informed that the National Bank provided a 4-billion-lei-worth credit to the banks under special administration (Banca de Economii, Unibank and Banca Sociala). „We intervened in order to calm down the spirits and ensure protection of legal entities and private persons, depositors of these banks,” Dragutanu said.

In January 2015, BNM intervened with currency sales in amount of 23.98 million dollars at Banca de Economii, Banca Sociala and Unibank.

The National Anticorruption Centre, in concert with the Anti-corruption Prosecution, carried out 26 searches in Chisinau on 6 February. They were made within two criminal files opened on the fact of violation of the credit rules by the administration of Banca de Economii, as well as on the abuse of power which resulted in significant damages caused to Banca Sociala.