Interpol Accepts Request to Reconsider Decision on Plahotniuc

Interpol granted a request to review the case of fugitive Moldovan oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office says. ‘On 25 November 2024, the Commission for the Control of Interpol Files granted the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, submitted through the Department of International Police Cooperation of the Interior Ministry (DCPI), to review the Commission’s decision of July 2020 against citizen Vladimir Plahotniuc,’ the agency said, noi.md reports. In October 2019, at the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, the DCPI requested, through Interpol, the declaration of a wanted list for Vladimir Plahotniuc, against whom an arrest warrant was issued on charges of money laundering regarding his role in a banking scheme that took place in Moldova in 2013-2015, through which more than a billion dollars were withdrawn from the banking system and possibly from the state budget – an investigation under the general name ‘Banking Scam’, pending before the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. In July 2020, the Interpol Commission informed Moldova that the Commission had examined the case at the request of Vladimir Plahotniuc, rejected the Moldovan request, and all data on Plahotniuc had been deleted from the Interpol system. Additional requests from Moldova to Interpol regarding Vladimir Plahotniuc in 2021-2022 remained unanswered. Vlad Plahotniuc fled the country in 2019 and was put on the international wanted list. According to the latest information from the Prosecutor’s Office, he is now in Northern Cyprus. Plahotniuc is seen as the main beneficiary of the billion theft, while he appears in several episodes in the bank scam case. The former Democratic Party leader is also involved in other cases in which he is accused of fraud, money laundering and organized crime.