Completed Investigation of the Plahotniuc’s case on 500 Billion Rubles Withdrawing from Russia

Russian Law enforcement officers have completed investigating and are preparing to take to court the criminal case on the withdrawal of more than 500 billion rubles from the Russian Federation through a Moldovan bank, the representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, Irina Volk said. "The Investigative Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia has completed the investigation of a criminal case against 8 members of the international criminal community, who are accused of withdrawing more than 500 billion rubles from the Russian Federation through illegal currency transactions," Volk said,  interfax.ru reported According to her, during the preliminary investigation it was established that in the period from June 2013 to the end of 2014, the owner of the Moldovan bank BC Moldindconbank S.A. Veaceslav Platon, together with the first vice-chairman and the de facto leader of the Democratic Party of Moldova Vladimir Plahotniuc, as well as Alexander Korkin, who has corruption and business ties in the banking sector, developed a mechanism for withdrawing clients' funds from the financial system of the Russian Federation. "To implement their plans, they attracted a native of the Moldavian SSR Renato Usatii, who has a significant financial and political resource in Moldova, the actual owners of a number of Russian banks, Alexander Grigoriev and Oleg Kuzmin, who provided their credit institutions as a tool for committing the crime, the heads of the treasury of banks Rinat Yusupov and Venera Sharipov , as well as lawyers Alexei Sobolev and Lev Pakhomov. In cooperation with the director of the treasury of "BC Moldindconbank SA" Elena Platon, using fictitious currency control documents, they ensured the daily transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars and euros to the bank accounts of a non-resident - "BC Moldindconbank SA", - said representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Plahotniuc, Platon and Usatii were put on the international wanted list, the court arrested them in absentia. The rest were charged with creating, leading and participating in the international criminal community, as well as committing illegal foreign exchange transactions. "All of them have been taken into custody as a preventive measure," said Volk. The four accused of committing the crime fully pleaded guilty and gave the investigators detailed testimonies about the leaders and members of the international criminal community, as well as other persons involved in the criminal scheme. "Currently, the defendants have begun familiarizing with the materials of the criminal case, after which it will be submitted to the court for consideration on the merits," Volk said. Plahotniuc and Usatii Vladimir Plahotniuc is a Moldovan politician and businessman and oligarch, ex-chairman of the Democratic Party of the Republic of Moldova (PDM), a former deputy of the republic's parliament. Several criminal cases have been initiated against Plahotniuc in Russia. In December 2017, the Investigative Committee of Russia accused him of creating a criminal group to prepare an attempt on the life of political opponent Renato Usatii. An arrest warrant was issued for Plahotniuc. Renato Usatii is a Moldovan politician, businessman, chairman of the opposition party Our Party, from 2015 to 2018 - the mayor of the second most populous Moldovan city of Balti. He left for Moscow in August 2016 after the Moldovan authorities opened criminal cases against him and tried to put him on the international wanted list. In February 2018, he resigned from the post of Mayor of Balti. At the end of 2018, he left Russia, stating that Moldovan President Igor Dodon is trying to organize persecution against him in Russia. Usatii lived in Germany for several months, after which he supposedly left for Romania. After the change of power in Moldova, he announced that he would immediately return to his homeland. The prosecutor's office of Moldova, after a lengthy interrogation, canceled the warrant for his arrest.