A game for two: how will the detention of Moldova's richest man turn out?
Oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc was detained in Greece at the request of the Moldovan authorities and with the help of Interpol. He is expected to be extradited to his homeland in the near future, where he will begin to testify. It is important that everything happens two months before the key parliamentary elections. The ruling party will surely use this plot to prove its effectiveness to the voters. Izvestia investigated the situation.
Running on the contrary
In Greece, at the request of the Moldovan authorities, the oligarch, the former leader of the Democratic Party of Moldova, Vladimir Plahotniuc, was detained. Chisinau media, citing their sources, report that the businessman had a Bulgarian passport in his hands, and in Athens he was in transit on his way to Dubai. Along with Plahotniuc, his close associate, former MP Konstantin Tsutsu, was also detained.
In this regard, the Moldovan Prosecutor General's Office promised to launch the extradition process in the near future. The country's president, Maia Sandu, called everything that happened good news. "We are waiting for justice to be done. Now the Moldovan justice system must restore justice. The structures responsible for his extradition will ensure that all procedures are followed," she stressed.
Plahotniuc is one of the symbols of Moldova's political life in the 2010s. Formally, he never held major government positions, but at the same time he was considered a gray cardinal and a puppet master who closed the threads of the country's governance to himself. With the help of extensive financial resources and active collection of compromising material, he is believed to have controlled Parliament, the judiciary, the prosecutor's office and many other institutions.
In addition, Plahotniuc participated in many dubious financial schemes. He is called one of the organizers of the "theft of the century" — the withdrawal of $1 billion from three Moldovan banks, after which the national currency collapsed in the republic and prices jumped. The dubious "success story" ended in 2019, when the Socialists and the pro-European ACUM bloc overcame the contradictions and united against the oligarch and his Democratic Party.
Then the established regime was dismantled quite quickly, and Plahotniuc himself fled the country. After that, criminal cases were opened against him in Chisinau regarding the leadership of an organized criminal group, drug smuggling and illegal withdrawal of funds abroad. In the European Union, he was on the sanctions list. In Russia, Plahotniuc was arrested in absentia on charges of organizing murders, creating organized crime groups and drug trafficking.
A gift from Brussels and the opposition alliance
In Moldova, in recent years, the figure of Plahotniuc has remained a cause for numerous controversies. The fact is that Maia Sandu and her party declared themselves as irreconcilable fighters against corruption. Before coming to power, they promised to do everything to investigate the most high-profile episodes, even initiating some proceedings themselves.
After coming to power, however, it was not possible to achieve success in this area. Moreover, there were suspicions that Sandu and her team were actually deliberately slowing down the investigation. So, in 2020, the country's Prosecutor General, Alexander Stoyanoglo, zealously set about clarifying the circumstances of the "theft of the century" and sent a request for Plahotniuc's extradition to the United States. Soon, however, he was scandalously dismissed from his post.
In addition, Chisinau could not connect Interpol to the search for the fugitive. In 2020, an incorrect request was sent to the organization, as a result, the oligarch refused to be added to the wanted list. Sandu's representatives then said that either a certain secretary had messed up something, or the case was handled by a saboteur prosecutor. As a result, Interpol put the businessman on the wanted list only in February of this year.
All these episodes have given rise to talk that Sandu's team is not really doing anything to investigate. "Corruption is rampant, mafia groups are in power along with Sandu: one is responsible for roads, another for gas, and the third for something else. Party figures who subordinate the justice system are promoted to positions," said former President Igor Dodon, adding that more and more figures from the Plahotniuc era are appearing in the ruling team.
In such circumstances, the current detention of the oligarch becomes a real gift to the ruling team. It is important that parliamentary elections will be held in Moldova in just two months. Accordingly, Maia Sandu and her supporters get a good reason during the election campaign to talk about the successes in the fight against corruption, that they are still able to fulfill past promises.
Meanwhile, there are many indirect factors indicating that everything that happened was the result of coordinated actions by the Moldovan and European authorities. It seems that Brussels has placed a bet on the victory of Sandu's party, which is being provided with all possible assistance in this way. It should be noted that this is the second such case in recent times. Earlier, in early July, the EU imposed sanctions against Chisinau Mayor Ion Ceban. He competes with the ruling party for pro-European voters. After the EU's decision, it will obviously be more difficult for him to assemble a support group.
Another important point is that exactly on the day of Plahotniuc's detention, the leaders of four leftist parties announced the creation of an opposition bloc, which included large associations of socialists and communists, as well as the parties "The Future of Moldova" and "The Heart of Moldova". If successful, the leaders of the bloc promise to improve relations with Russia, opinion polls show that this union has a good chance of a final victory.
In any other case, the creation of an alliance would have been the main information channel, but after the detention of Plahotniuc, it faded into the background. The opposition considers everything that happened to be a well-planned political strategy. "I know from my sources that the arrest took place at 4 a.m. Apparently, someone decided to wait for the briefing in the hope of shifting attention from our statement," emphasizes Igor Dodon, one of the leaders of the bloc.
What the experts say
Zurab Todua, a former member of the Moldovan parliament, believes that the ruling party has indeed received a good reason for self-promotion.
— Plahotniuc was a very big figure, the de facto master of Moldova, and no issue was resolved without his word. After 2019, he lived quite freely, everyone knew which countries he was in, which documents he had issued. However, there were no problems. He probably received certain guarantees when fleeing the country. Apparently, they have now been decided to ignore them in order to raise the rating of the ruling party. It will be very interesting to observe the further development of the situation. Apparently, he will be delivered to the territory of Moldova right before the elections," he argues.
Moldovan political analyst Alexander Korinenko agrees that the detention of the oligarch could have been a coordinated action by Chisinau and Brussels. However, according to him, there is another version.
— I noticed that representatives of the ruling party were rather stingy and reluctant to comment on the detention. Perhaps everything that happened really came as a surprise to them. The fact is that Plahotniuc has a lot of various compromising materials on current Moldovan politicians, including members of Sandu's team. I do not exclude that the oligarch decided to return to the game by surrendering to the police on his own. He could have been pushed to this by some external actors. In any case, after returning to Moldova, he can make scandalous episodes public, create pre—election chaos, and mix the cards with the ruling group," he explains.
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