The National Bank of Moldova received the second informative note about the progress made by the companies Kroll and Steptoe & Johnson in investigating the fraud committed in the banking sector of Moldova. So far, the analysis of the flow of funds enabled to identify over US$600 million that disappeared in 2012-2014 without returning to the three Moldovan banks as repayment for the raised loans, IPN reports.
According to the note, these funds were dissipated in multiple foreign jurisdictions. The results of the investigation show that the beneficiaries of the fraud go beyond the companies and private individuals related to the Shor group.
Kroll and Steptoe & Johnson continue to cooperate with the regulatory authorities and other interested sides from multiple jurisdictions, including Latvia and Estonia, so as to get evidence to identify the final beneficiaries and actions could be taken to recover the stolen funds.
The first stage of the investigation revealed evidence of the involvement of Ilan Shor and companies and persons related to him in this fraud. The given proofs laid at the basis of a thorough analysis of the flows of funds obtained fraudulently in 2014, which was carried out with the aim of determining the final destination of the funds.
Within the second stage of the investigation, the analysis of the flow of funds was significantly extended in order to cover the period between 2012 and 2014 and all the fraudulent loans provided by the three Moldovan banks started to be followed up to their final destination. A complex and coordinated money laundering scheme was discovered. This involves hundreds of companies and bank accounts in different jurisdictions.
In 2012-2014, the three banks of Moldova provided loans to the value of over US$3 billion. The funds were mainly channeled through the agency of a complex international money laundering scheme, a significant fraction of the funds returning to Moldova for repaying earlier raised loans.
As a result of this fraud, the three banks - Banca de Economii, Banca Sociala and Unibank – went bankrupt at the end of 2014 and the disappearance of about US$1 billion from these became known.
