File on charging Moldovan businessman submitted to court

Chisinau, 18 November /MOLDPRES/ - The file on charging businessman Veaceslav Platon was submitted to court today.  

The press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office (PG) has said that Veaceslav Platon was prosecuted for swindle and laundering of particularly large sums of money, which caused damage worth about 800 million lei to Banca de Economii (Savings Bank, BEM). “The money, got by fraud in form of loans, was transferred to accounts of more offshore companies, in order to conceal their illegal origin; and subsequently, a part of the money was used to pay off earlier borrowed loans in banks from Moldova,” reads a press release of PG.     

Also, the suspect benefited from credits amounting to more than 800 million lei from BEM, by using interposed persons, who, in order to get the money, pledged stocks at Moldindconbank, as well as assets from Russia. The money, however,  would have got on accounts of tens of offshore firms, as well as on the ones of companies and financial institutions from Russia, Latvia and Ukraine. All this in order to given the money legal origin, the PG communiqué also reads.    

Presently, prosecutors levied distraint upon assets, social parts of resident companies, which belong to the defendant, as well as banking accounts worth about 700 million lei.

Platon turns down prosecutors’ charges and pleads not guilty.

If found guilty, Veaceslav Platon runs the risk of being sentenced to up to 15 years of imprisonment for swindle and ten years for money laundering.  

(Reporter A. Plitoc, editor L. Alcaza)