The responsible prosecutors must be held accountable for thwarting the investigation into the bank fraud. These sequestrated the assets of persons suspected of involvement in the fraud with a great delay and some of these assets were thus sold. It will be now difficult for the state as it could suffer legal and financial consequences if it is in litigation with the new owners, ex-minister of finance Veaceslav Negruța was quoted by IPN as saying in the talk show “Expertise hour” on Jurnal TV channel.
According to him, the Second Kroll Report on the bank fraud should be the culminating point that would reveal names, jurisdictions and other details about those involved in the theft of banking funds. The delay in investigating the bank fraud created space and time for the money to be moved to other parts, to be used and not to be recovered for Moldova’s public interests. Too much time passed and the possibility of recovering the money diminishes daily.
Political commentator Victor Ciobanu said people whose task is to defend those who committed the US$ 1 billion theft remained in some of the institutions. Furthermore, there could be found firms that were involved in the bank fraud or the Russian laundromat that could now have no assets or could be owned by other persons. “They actually remove the trails and move the money to other jurisdictions,” he stated.
Economic expert Veaceslav Ioniță said the Republic of Moldova became an accomplice to money laundering schemes because it was vulnerable. When the law on money laundering was to be adopted in Parliament in 2012-2013, the initiators admitted that they did it because they were forced to by the European Union. ”So, we didn’t have infrastructure, an internal group that would have been really concerned with money laundering. We launched the fight against money laundering only under foreign pressure,” noted Veaceslav Ioniță.
