Anticorruption prosecutors and officers of the National Anticorruption Center arrested four persons on suspicion of involvement in a scheme used to launder money and appropriate billions of lei from Banca de Economii (BEM). Among those arrested are relatives of the leader of the Liberal Democratic Party Vlad Filat, who said that he knows exactly why such measures are taken on the last 100 meters of the process of forming a ruling alliance, IPN reports.
Anticorruption prosecutor Adriana Betisor told the journalists that the searches were carried out after they received information from colleagues from abroad, which generated reasonable suspicions concerning the involvement of companies based in Moldova in money-laundering schemes, including in the case of the stealing committed at Banca de Economii.
Bogdan Zumbreanu, head of the National Anticorruption Center’s Prosecution Division, said that during searches they traced evidence showing involvement in laundering money, including from BEM. The law enforcement bodies will soon provide details about the scheme and the subsequent actions.
On a social networking site, Vlad Filat said he does not want to classify somehow these actions. “I understand the context in which these are taken, as many others understand this. Why now when the new alliance is close to be formed? Regardless of these actions, Moldova will have a pro-European alliance formed based on principles of correctitude and with a clear objective of reforming the justice sector, with direct European involvement. I’m sure that Ion and Vladimir Rusu (his relatives – e.n.), together with their colleagues, will prove their innocence. I will make effort for the people to find out the truth about the stealing from the banking system,” he wrote.
At the beginning of this year, the public found out about the stealing of €1 million from the country’s banking system, through Banca de Economii, Banca Sociala and Unibank. The competent authorities said the money was appropriated by granting loans that turned out to be bad ones.
