Tens of state institutions were directly or indirectly involved in the bank theft committed in Moldova in 2009 – 2014. The National Bank of Moldova and the administrative bodies of the institutions pretended not to be seeing what was going on at Banca de Economii, Banca Socială and UniBank, IPN reports, with reference to the statements made by Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo.
“Approximately ten employees of the banking system were arrested and held accountable. Most of them are former members of the Administration Board of the National Bank of Moldova. The National Bank played a very negative role in this theft. The bank fraud showed that the state institutions were captured at that moment. No state institution fulfilled its duties,” Alexandr Stoianoglo stated in the talk show “About us” on Jurnal TV channel.
The official noted the Money Laundering Prevention and Combating Service in the period sent thousands of pages concerning processes taking place in the banking system to the prosecution service, but these were overlooked. Currently, checks are carried out based on these materials collected by the Money Laundering Prevention Service. “We collected information and this shows that many employees of the National Bank were involved in the bank fraud. The directors did absolutely nothing beginning with 2012, when the problems at Banca de Economii started, to institute special administration, to monitor the situation in the banking system,” he stated.
“In November 2014, Banca de Economii and Banca Socială released loans totaling 13 billion lei. This is equal to the volume of loans provided by all the banks of the Republic of Moldova during a year. These loans were granted without backing as it was clear that Banca de Economii and Banca Socială were insolvent. They yet released loans to business entities that didn’t perform economic activities. It seemed that the National Bank didn’t see anything.”
Alexandru Stoianoglo noted that this is only one example of inaction at the National Bank, but there are many such examples. “The people who committed those violations and were involved in illegalities will be penalized. They have two options – either to cooperate with the investigation bodies or they will be soon indicated and the cases started against them will be sent to court,” he stated.
According to the prosecutor general, the number of persons and institutions involved in the bank theft is huge. “Some of the institutions were actively involved, while others were rather passive. A large number of persons opened bank accounts, others created companies offshore or transferred money, while the rest arranged all these schemes,” said Alexandr Sroianoglo.
