Ten years have passed since US$1 billion was stolen from Moldova’s banking system and over US$20 billion was stolen through Moldovan banks, with the involvement of judges, before the eyes of the law enforcement agencies, in the absence of robust surveillance mechanisms, but the main actors of these schemes continue to be on the outies, says the report “Republic “Offshore”: analysis of factors that contributed to systemic fraud and stealing of money from financial-banking and insurance sectors of the Republic of Moldova that was compiled by the Independent Anticorruption Consultative Committee (IACC), IPN reports.
According to the document, so as not to allow such schemes to repeat again, a transparent procedure and clear criteria for appointing the governor, vice governor of the National Bank of Moldova and the managers of other institutions should be ensured, the early detection of money laundering by the responsible institutions should be strengthened and the recovery process should be improved by ensuring better coordination between agents, by strengthening international support and by other actions.
In the launch of the report, Ion Guzun, director of the IACC secretariat, said that the persons holding administrative posts at the NBM were earlier named according to political criteria, while the responsibility of this institution failed. The court decisions in the bank fraud case were late. The report features the names of Plahotniuc, Platon, Șor, Reidman.
U.S. diplomat James Wasserstrom, IACC co-president, noted that the bank fraud wasn’t an isolated action. It lasted for 20 years and this is proven by evidence. The schemes were borrowed from Russia and other states, while the effective beneficiaries were hidden. The Republic of Moldova should regain its independence as particular institutions were captured.
According to him, it is not clear who the 11 banks supervised by the NBM belong to and there is this unwillingness to carry out inspections to this effect. They say there are banks that have suspicious transactions involving politically exposed persons, but the given banks do not provide such information.
IACC co-president Tamara Razin, who is an expert in macroeconomics and international finance, noted that nothing had been done during eight years to investigate the bank fraud because there was no political will. The current Government took serious and difficult measures to deal with the flagrant rule of law shortages witnessed in each element of the justice system. The process will be long, while the success will be uncertain. A lot of work is to be done. Insufficient progress has been made to recover the lost assets. The law enforcement agencies that fight corruption didn’t act on time to recover these assets.
The report presents findings, contains conclusions and recommendations for strengthening the institutions, increasing their transparency in activity, amending the legislation, improving the surveillance mechanisms in the financial, banking and insurance sectors.
The next IACC reports will refer to the duties of the anticorruption institutions, political party funding and corruption at state-owned enterprises. The IACC will present the next report in September.
The Independent Anticorruption Consultative Committee was founded in 2021 by presidential decree as an independent body consisting of national and foreign experts whose duty is to analyze systemic problems related to grand corruption that affect the national state institutions and to improve their capacity to implement anticorruption measures.
