Businessman Veaceslav Platon, who is serving 30 years in jail for swindle and money laundering, said ex-Premier Iurie Leancă was fully involved in the infamous theft of bank funds in Moldova, but this didn’t understand what he was doing, IPN reports.

In an interview for TV8 channel’s talk show “Politics of Natalia Morari” from jail, Veaceslav Platon stated that after the arrest of the leader of the then Liberal Democratic Party Vlad Filat, all the MPs who defected to the Democratic Party were bribed. “I don’t know how much money each of these got, but I know for sure that they were bribed. They monthly got money in envelopes, from €3,000 to €5,000. Iurie Leancă was fully involved in the bank fraud,” said the ex-MP.

He also said that the bank theft was committed in a number of stages. At the first stage, money from the three banks - Unibank, Banca Socială and Banca de Economii – were withdrawn in the form of loans that were repaid by granting new loans. This stage lasted from 2012 until October 2014.  

“The second stage of the theft was when there was no money in the bank in September-October 2014 and Plahotniuc ordered that the state-owned enterprises should take out loans from other banks and bring it to Banca de Economii. They transferred money from different accounts to the accounts of BEM. I know that the companies “Moldtelecom”, “Moldovagaz” were involved. Yaralov asked me to release loans to these enterprises,” stated Veaceslav Platon, who then played particular roles in the management of Moldindcombank.

According to him, the last stage started in November 2014. The loan portfolio of the three banks that month alone came to 6 billion lei. Formally, there was no money in the banks, but there were documents concerning the provision of loans.

The businessman considers the Moldovan authorities should study this phenomenon. Kroll was hired in order to dally things. The company examined the operations at the three robbed banks only superficially.

He noted he intended to buy the Second Kroll Report from representatives of Moldovan law enforcement agencies, but failed. In the meantime, he was asked for US$20,000 for a copy of this report.

Veaceslav Platon was arrested in July 2016 on charges of swindle and money laundering in very large amounts that caused damage of over 800 million lei to Banca de Economii (Savings Bank). He got 30 years behind cumulatively. Veaceslav Platon pleads not guilty.