The masterminds of the bank fraud were no ordinary people, they knew all the ins and outs of the banking system, and had planned carefully all the details so that they don’t get caught, according to prosecutor Adriana Bețișor.
Adriana Bețișor reminded journalists at a press conference today that per the Recovery Strategy the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office uses the amount of 13.34 billion lei as a target for how much money it has to recover. So far 2.27 billion lei has been recovered and 26 investigations are ongoing in an attempt to get closer to the target.
Asked by reporters about why she recently resigned as acting Anticorruption Chief Prosecutor, Bețișor said she had her personal reasons, but she still would handle her ongoing investigations.
Attending the same press conference, Prosecutor General Eduard Harunjen said the bank fraud had to be investigated “in a professional manner” so that it produces the desired effect.
“We did a Kroll Report synthesis and made steps to investigate the bank fraud and recover the damages. There are contractual clauses which prevent us from revealing some information. This report could only be given to the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office, the National Bank of Moldova, and the Ill-gotten Proceeds Recovery Agency”, said Eduard Harunjen.
Serghei Carapunarlî, deputy head of the Recovery Agency, said the cyber-investigation could not progress fast enough given the lack of specialized software and a massive amount of 24,000 bank operations from 37 Moldovan firms that had to be checked. As many as 192 requests for international assistance have been sent to foreign and international agencies like Europol.
Earlier today the parliamentary inquiry commission investigating the bank fraud published a copy of the Second Kroll Report. However the document is missing an important appendage, the list of final beneficiaries, and reportedly only prosecutors have access to it.
