Judges detained by Moldovan anticorruption centre suspected of complicity to laundering of more than 20 billion dollars

Chisinau, 21 September /MOLDPRES/ - The judges detained by anticorruption prosecutors and officers of the National Anticorruption Centre (CNA) on 20 September are suspected of complicity to the laundering of more than 20 billion dollars. The anticorruption prosecutor, Viorel Morari, made statements to this effect at a news conference today.

The head of the CNA criminal prosecution department, Bogdan Zumbreanu, has said that over 50 searches were made in officers, homes and vehicles of the suspects on 20 September. “The raised materials, among which acts and electronic media, have been submitted to the case prosecutors. Twenty criminal files against 16 magistrates and four bailiffs were opened in all for complicity to committing offences of money laundering. The 18 persons were detained for 72 hours, with an eventual extension of the warrant of arrest to be subsequently decided. Another two suspects are wanted,” Zumbreanu noted.  

According to the anticorruption prosecutor, the scheme of money laundering was carried out in more stages. “Two offshore companies were concluding a loan contract on a certain sum, such as 250 million dollars. The companies were represented by citizens of Ukraine. The latter were signing a guarantee contract, and a citizen of Moldova was included as a guarantor, as a rule, from the category of socially vulnerable people or from the Transnistrian region, who were difficult to find. Subsequently, the goal of the private person guarantor was to identify other citizens (guarantors), to sign contracts with four companies from Russia, which were to return the money, in case of failure to fulfill the contractual conditions,” Viorel Morari said.      

“Another phase of the scheme represents the failure to honour the contractual actions and the appealing to court by the creditor, who was citizen of Moldova. The court was accepting the petition, and the money was collected at the expense of the companies from Russia, through a commercial bank from Moldova. Subsequently, the money from the account of bailiffs was sent to creditors, i.e. offshore companies, after which the money was transferred to other companies,” Morari said.   

Magistrates from the Centru district court of Chisinau, courts of Causeni, Comrat, Riscani, Telenesti and Ungheni are involved in the scheme. They acted in the period of 2010-2013, and the national budget was harmed by about one billion lei.  

If found guilty, the suspects run the risk of being sentenced to 5-10 years of imprisonment.

(Reporter A. Plitoc, editor A. Raileanu)