Moldova is Fifth Country to Launch a Money Laundering Investigation into the $230m Tax Rebate Fraud Uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky

February 11, 2013

The Moldovan author­i­ties have opened a crim­i­nal mon­ey laun­der­ing case on the basis of $53m of funds laun­dered through Moldo­va con­nect­ed to the $230m theft iden­ti­fied and exposed by Russ­ian anti cor­rup­tion lawyer Sergei Mag­nit­sky. The case was opened in response to a for­mal com­plaint filed by Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment in June last year, report­ed the EU Observ­er (http://euobserver.com/justice/118988). In the com­plaint, lawyers for Her­mitage Cap­i­tal iden­ti­fied 2 accounts at Moldova’s Ban­ca de Economii which received the funds stolen from the Russ­ian trea­sury via the scheme exposed by Sergei Mag­nit­sky. Those funds were then sent to Cyprus, Latvia, Lithua­nia, Esto­nia, Switzer­land, Aus­tria, Fin­land and Hong Kong. 

“A crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion was start­ed by…the Nation­al Anti-Cor­rup­tion Cen­tre – on mon­ey laun­der­ing in Decem­ber 2012. The case is now being inves­ti­gat­ed,” wrote the Moldovan anti-cor­rup­tion agency in response to EU Observer.

By open­ing a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion into mon­ey laun­der­ing, Moldo­va joins Switzer­land, Cyprus, Latvia and Lithua­nia who all have launched mon­ey laun­der­ing inves­ti­ga­tions into the trail of funds stolen from the Russ­ian trea­sury with the involve­ment of Russ­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cials and orga­nized crim­i­nals. So far, no bank accounts have been frozen in Moldo­va in rela­tion to this case.

“Moldo­va was cho­sen as a tran­sit point by the Russ­ian organ­ised crim­i­nal group behind the theft of hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars and the arrest and death of Sergei Mag­nit­sky. An inves­ti­ga­tion held in coop­er­a­tion with Euro­pean law enforce­ment bod­ies could help iden­ti­fy fur­ther recip­i­ents and ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the stolen and laun­dered funds across the EU,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal representative.
Accord­ing to the Moldovan Nation­al Anti-Cor­rup­tion Cen­tre, Moldovan Prime Min­is­ter Vlad Filat said he would per­son­al­ly mon­i­tor the case, report­ed the EU Observer.

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