The Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) said the case started against Veaceslav Platon was fully fabricated and a procedure to review the sentence will be initiated. It also noted that Vladimir Plahotniuc is one of the main beneficiaries of the bank theft. According to Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo, given the findings, a new ordinance to charge citizen Plahotniuc will be made today and the accusation against him will be supplemented so that he is charged on three counts, IPN reports.
“Starting with 2015, the beneficiaries of the bank theft had been divided into three groups of interests: Platon group, Shor group and Filat group. Platon and Filat were convicted, while the case of Shor is being examined in court. During a long period of time, the two Kroll reports hadn’t been published and we ascertained that this wasn’t accidental. Do you remember the statements according to which most of those who were included in the Kroll report are “absolutely honest”? In fact, it was established that the Kroll report makes reference to one more group of influence – the group of Plahotniuc that wasn’t officially mentioned,” Alexandr Stoianoglo told a news conference on May 18. According to him, evidence of the active involvement of the Plahotniuc group in the bank fraud existed from the very beginning.
The prosecutor general said it was determined that the case against Veaceslav Platon was fully fabricated. “The accusation was based on intentionally distorted assessments and erroneous interpretations of facts that resulted from the accusations against Shor. Consequently, citizen Platon was sentenced absolutely illegally and he is thus surviving his sentence illegally. Based on the accumulated evidence, the PGO will initiate the procedure for reviewing his sentence and will insist on the equitable examination of the case, by guaranteeing all his rights, not as earlier,” stated Alexandr Stoianoglo.
He also said that they have incontestable evidence that namely citizen Plahotniuc was the beneficiary of sums totaling over US$100 million obtained in loans from Banca de Economii (BEM) through the agency of the Shor group, which were consequently covered with money from the central bank. “The sums were used to purchase the shareholding of a bank, the building of the insurance company ASITO, the fashion house “Casa Modei” and the hotel “Național”. Also, the loans raised from BEM were used by Plahotniuc for personal purposes or by companies affiliated to him for buying a plane, paying for personal charter flights and for satisfying the needs of persons close to him.”
Vladimir Plahotniuc will be charged on three counts: founding of a criminal organization; swindle and money laundering, both in very large amounts. Immediately after the indictment is translated into English, it will be transmitted to the component authorities in the U.S. with the request to extradite him to Moldova so that he could be held accountable.
“I realize very well that after such decisions, the PGO and I myself will be subject to an avalanche of criticism and even threats on the part of political forces affiliated to Plahotniuc, the media and civil society subordinated to him. Therefore, we bank on the support of the healthy forces of society for which the human rights, the rule of law and democratic society are not empty words,” stated Alexandr Stoianoglo.
