Businessman Victor Topa gets ten years

Businessman Victor Topa was sentenced to ten years in jail for obtaining valuable property by blackmail. “The court found Victor Topa and his accomplice Vladimir Morari guilty of illegally obtaining the transfer of the shares of Galina Proidisvet (ex-first vice president of Victoriabank) and her relatives to a banking institution,” anticorruption prosecutor Lilian Rudei has told Info-Prim Neo. According to the prosecutor, the sentence was passed on October 19 in the absence of Victor Topa, who avoided attending the hearings. The investigation was opened after Galina Proidisvet filed a complaint, accusing Victor Topa of kidnapping, blackmail and extortion of shares to the value of US$9 million. “By blackmail and threats, Victor Topa, one of the representatives of the group of shareholders, forced us to give our shares. It happened in Moscow in August 2007,” it is said in a statement made by Galina Proidisvet, which was cited by the portal 24H. According to the portal, Galina Proidisvet told a news conference that she was abducted by two persons and taken to a militia station in Moscow, where she was told to immediately meet two intermediaries and cede her shareholding in order not to cause trouble to herself. The same scenario was related by the former president of Victoriabank Victor Turcan, who is the brother-in-law of Galina Proidisvet, in a news conference at Info-Prim Neo in September. Victor Turcan said brothers Victor and Viorel Topa were behind the scheme whereby there were appropriated 14% of the shares in Victoriabank, while Vladimir Moraru is the person to whom the shares were transferred. He also said that the court returned the shares to the rightful owners only in several years.