Moldova Seizes €75 Million in Assets from Fugitive Oligarch

The director of Moldova's National Anti-Corruption Centre, Iulian Rusu, announced on Monday evening the seizure of oligarch Ilan Shor's assets in the country.

"The seizures applied by the Criminal Assets Recovery Agency reached the amount of 1.5 billion lei [about 75 million euros]. These are properties from Moldova," Rusu told TV8.

Shor was the mastermind behind the so-called 'grand theft' a billion US dollars from three private banks guaranteed by Moldovan National Bank between 2012 and 2014.

He was convicted in June 2017 in a first-instance trial and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison.

But he fled Moldova in June 2019 before the second-instance verdict to Israel, on the same day as another oligarch, Vladimir Plahotniuc, who was the leading figure in Moldova from 2016 to 2019.

Shor is also an Israeli citizen and cannot be deported. He is also still a deputy in the Moldovan parliament. He has made no comment so far on the asset seizure.

Rusu also said that assets worth "several hundred million lei" belonging to Shor have been identified abroad.

National Anti-Corruption Centre officers are working with their foreign counterparts to seize these assets, but Rusu did give any details about where they are held.

"Outside the country, we are working with colleagues in several jurisdictions to help us identify [the assets]. It's a more complex troubleshooting process. We need the help of foreign colleagues; we don't have all the data," Rusu said.

Rusu also said that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office questioned Galina Dodon, the wife of Moldova's former pro-Russian President Igor Dodon, on Monday evening.

The questioning was related to illicit enrichment, one of the four charges laid by...