Oligarch Plakhotnyuk, suspected of involvement in \'laundry\' in Russia, elected to Moldovan parliament

Vladimir Plakhotnyuk

The leader of the Democratic Party was elected in a single-seat constituency.

The well-known Moldovan entrepreneur and leader of the Democratic Party ruling in the Republic, Vladimir Plakhotnyuk, was elected to the country's parliament after the elections in single-member constituencies, RBC reports with reference to the data of the local CEC.

Thus, Plakhotnyuk managed to gain 72.94% of votes in Nisporensky Okrug (20287 people). His main rivals - the Deputy Chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party, journalist Ion Tergutse, and the representative of the Socialist Party (PSRM) Pavel Artamonov received 17.8 and 6.52%, respectively.

Of note, almost on the eve of the elections, the Russian Interior Ministry called Plakhotnyuk a suspect in the case of the withdrawal of 37 billion rubles ($567.2 m) from Russia. According to security officials, the entrepreneur is involved in the so-called 'Moldovan laundry' - according to the Russian investigation, along with businessman Vyacheslav Platon, they are the orchestrators of the withdrawal scheme.

Crimes were committed between 2013 and 2014, when members of the criminal community “on far-fetched grounds and forged documents” transferred money in foreign currency from accounts of legal entities at Bank Zapadny OJSC and Russian Land Bank OJSC under their control to accounts in Moldovan bank Moldindconbank S.A. and other foreign organizations.

The Interior Ministry claims that the funds in Russian rubles were written off from the correspondent accounts of Russian banks in Moldindconbank on counterfeit decisions of Moldovan courts in favor of foreign individuals and legal entities. For the first time the 'laundry' was mentioned in 2014, then it was reported that about 500 people were complicit in the scheme. The real amount of funds withdrawn from Russia could reach $ 80 billion, the investigators suggested.

A Moldovan court convicted Platon of illegal withdrawal of money from Russia for 18 years in 2017. In the same year, but in another case, the Basmanny court of the capital arrested Plakhotnyuk in absentia.

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