Transparency International expert Veaceslav Negruța, ex-minister of finance, said no money of the funds stolen from the banking system has been recovered so far. The liquidators of the three commercial banks gather the planned amounts by selling assets and collecting interest on the repaid loans, but no money was recovered based on those definitive court decisions and executory titles that total about 15 billion lei, according to the National Bank.
“I refer to five companies that were announced as belonging to the Shor group by the National Bank in September 2017. Of the 15 billion lei, nothing has been yet recovered. The amounts collected under insolvency procedures have nothing to do with the recovery of the stolen US$ 1 billion. The money will probably be recovered if an investigation was really launched, based mainly on the Kroll report and the recovery strategy that was presented to the authorities by this consortium Kroll and Steptoe & Johnson,” Veaceslav Negruța stated in an interview for Radio Free Europe that is quoted by IPN.
The former minister of finance said the state would have had more chances to recover the stolen funds if the accounts of the business entities mentioned in the Kroll 1 and 2 reports had been sequestrated and blocked. The chances to recover larger amounts of those robbed diminish daily. Regrettably, the stolen money is mainly in foreign jurisdictions, including offshore areas, and these were indicated in the Kroll 2 report. So, a part of these resources move and some of these could enter Moldova in the form of different projects, including by participation in privatization procedures.
Asked if indirectly the citizens repay something of this sum, Veaceslav Negruța said the citizens were already deprived of the resources they had in those three banks. Later, their resources, the deposits that were absent were covered with foreign exchange reserves and international reserves placed at the National Bank that indirectly belong to the citizens. Furthermore, the citizens will be paying interest to fill the gap created by these financial frauds during 25 years, until 2041. By almost 1 billion lei is to be annually paid from the state budget until 2041.
As to the Speaker of Parliament Adrian Candu’s statement that the authorities already found over 90% of the stolen funds, made while in the U.S. on a visit, the expert said this is an assertion made in a particular context and far from home. If this statement had been made at internal level, more figures should have been provided and these would have shown that no money has been recovered and no investigation is being conducted.
