Kroll investigation documents submitted to Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office of Moldova

Chisinau, 23 March /MOLDPRES/ - The National Bank of Moldova (BNM) has said that, following a visit to Moldova by Kroll representatives, it officially received all investigation documents of the Kroll and Steptoe & Johnson international consortium, which were submitted to the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office.     

The documents refer to the fraud which led to the insolvency of Banca de Economii (Savings Bank), Banca Sociala (Social Bank) and Unibank. The Kroll and Steptoe & Johnson representatives confirmed willingness to cooperate with the Moldovan inquiry bodies, to back efforts to recover the assets embezzled on the international stage, as well as to strengthen the evidence basis in the procedures underway in Moldova, BNM also said.     

The National Bank has earlier said that, on 6 March 2018 evening, it had received the final report on the investigation of the bank fraud from the companies Kroll and Steptoe & Johnson. A synthesis of the investigation report, which reveals how the money was stolen, as well as the countries through which it circulates, was published on BNM’s webpage on 21 December 2017.     

The synthesis reads that, during 2012-2014, the three banks of Moldova provided loans worth 2.9 billion U.S. dollars in all to companies of the Shor Group. At least 77 companies formed this coordinated group. These funds were transferred predominantly to bank accounts of two banks from Latvia, before being laundered through a network of about 100 corporate bank accounts from Latvia.   

According to the synthesis of the Kroll company’s report, the great majority of the accounts were opened on names of companies registered in the United Kingdom or in offshore locations, such as Belize, BVI and Panama. The investigation shows that about 185 million dollars discovered so far was deposited at banks from Moldova, other than the three problem banks, 63 million dollars was deposited in Cyprus, 61 million in China and Hong Kong and 23 million dollars in Switzerland. About 200 million dollars was transferred to accounts of more banks from Latvia, which was further subjected to a complex mechanism of laundering the funds.     

The embezzlement of the aforementioned three banks was described in the local and international media as “theft of the century” or “the billion theft”. BNM provided emergency loans worth over 14 billion lei to the three problem banks. In 2016, the emergency loans were converted into state debt and the Finance Ministry issued state bonds amounting to 13 billion 583 million lei for a period of up to 25 years, at an effective interest rate of five per cent. The bonds were submitted to the National Bank of Moldova.    

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor L. Alcaza)