The contracting of the U.S. company Kroll for performing further the investigation by the National Bank of Moldova is not the only foreign assistance solution for recovering the money stolen from the banking sector. The suggestion was made by the Resource Center for Human Rights (CReDO), which carried out an investigation and ascertained that the cooperation between the national law enforcement bodies and the international subdivisions of BIG/StARR, which, besides recovering the stolen assets, can also track down the persons to blame, is an alternative to the contract with Kroll.
CReDO executive director Sergiu Ostaf, in a news conference at IPN, said it is important not only to recover the money, what Kroll can do, but to also hold accountable the persons responsible for the bank frauds. Therefore, the proposed alternative is highly superior because the chances of holding accountable those to blame in the country and of freezing the stolen assets abroad are much greater.
According to Sergiu Ostaf, Kroll can identity and trace the stolen assets, but it’s not know if it’s able to freeze these assets for the purpose of recovering them and returning them to the country. In this connection, the involvement of the national law enforcement bodies is vital. The state institutions need experience in recovering the stolen assets so as to know how to deal with similar cases in the future.
Olga Bitca, CReDO project coordinator and head of the Anticorruption Alliance, said the contracting of Kroll reminds of a similar case – the concession of the Chisinau International Airport, when there was no transparency. Furthermore, the recovery of the stolen assets is a complex process consisting of several stages, while the contract with Kroll does not ensure that this company will be able to go through all these stages.
The CReDO experts consider some of the decision makers were ill-intentioned when they contracted Kroll as they wanted to make sure that those to blame will not be brought to justice even if a part of the stolen assets could be returned to the state. The CReDO recommends the authorities to examine the possibility of accepting the identified alternative, which could be used in parallel with the investigation performed by Kroll.
