As part of the investigation project #Plahostan, which consists of a number of installments, journalists of RISE Moldova published the story of the unjust enrichment of fugitive oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc in the form of an online game “VIP-store Plahotniuc”, where data about the hidden property of the former politician, to the value of over €100 million (2.2bn lei), is presented in a virtual store, IPN reports.
The goal of presenting the investigative materials of journalists and prosecutors in the form of a game is to draw the society’s attention to upper-level corruption in Moldova, to show that an ordinary Moldovan citizen needs hundreds or even thousands of years to work to gain assets similar to those appropriated by corruption, co-author of the investigation project, journalist Vladimir Thorik, told IPN.
According to the journalist, “anyone who enters the store with Plahotniuc’s assets can place a cupule of houses and a car they like into the basket during a minute. With the help of an online calculator, anyone can determine how much time they need to obtain, with the current incomes, at least a part of the property gained by Plahotniuc during five years of “state capture”.
The journalist determined that if someone monthly sets aside an average salary that is of 10,600 lei in Moldova, they would need about 18,000 years to acquire the property gained by Plahotniuc during five years. “So, our game with 2 billion lei helps to realize the scale of corruption in Moldova”.
The author of the project said that most of the assets available in the catalogue of the virtual store are part of the criminal case started in 2021 by Dumitru Răileanu, prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Special Cases.
According to the calculations done by Răileanu, who is quoted in the RISE investigation, the value of 2.2 billion lei of the property that wasn’t declared by the oligarch is larger than the value of all the cases of unjust enrichment that were discovered by Moldovan investigators the past eight years, which is from the moment the Penal Code of Moldova began to stipulate punishment for unjust enrichment.
The story “VIP-store Plahotniuc” forms part of the investigation project #Plahostan.
Plahostan consists of a series of articles about the most important events, facts and participants in the criminal grouping organized by Plahotniuc who, according to prosecutors, controlled Moldova.
“Many of the members of the criminal group organized by Plahotniuc, who managed Moldova, are on the outside and haven’t been yet punished. They continue influencing political, economic and legal processes in the country. Some of them are still part of state institutions,” concluded Vladimir Thorik.
