Moldova has the right to demand from the Russian “Gazprombank” the return of $100 million withdrawn from the BEM accounts within the framework of the “theft of the billion” - Prosecutor General stated.
Alexandru Stoianoglo stated this in an interview within the program "Constellations of Moldova with Artur Efremov". The host asked if the Prosecutor General had figured out in 1 year and 9 months of his work who was the brain, who was the executor, and who was made the "scapegoat" in the “theft of the billion” case. To this Alexandru Stoianoglo replied: “We still continue to figure out this, and at each stage we have new evidence. In any case, I can say that during the period of my activity we have done much more to investigate the “theft of the billion” than our predecessors did, who deliberately conducted the case on false accusations, along the wrong path”. According to him, this year alone, about 10 criminal cases were sent to court. “I know that many are interested in the issue of compensation for damage, there were even parliamentary hearings about it. But I want to say that even in this we have a very serious result. Another thing is that we cannot implement them. Let me explain why. For example, a year ago we completed a criminal case, within the framework of which a number of Victoriabank officials and Victoriabank itself were brought to justice. So, Victoriabank participated in the “theft of the billion” and illegally received 2.5 billion lei from the state budget from the money allocated by the National Bank. We arrested the relevant assets of Victoriabank, and for a year now we cannot send this case to court, because the lawyers (and the judges agree with this) found dozens of loopholes of a procedural nature, where they simply appealed the decision to separate the criminal case from the case, where there are hundreds of episodes. They appealed against it in court, and for the first time in history the court considered such a statement and granted it. And now for a whole year we go to courts and seek the right to send this case to court,” said the Prosecutor General. According to him, this is one moment, but there is another one aswell. “Six months ago, we submitted to the National Bank of Moldova a draft statement of claim to recover from Gazprombank $100 million, which were in the accounts of Banca de Economii in November 2014. And the National Bank has not yet submitted this statement of claim to the court. We are now considering the issue of filing this claim within the framework of a criminal case that we have sent to the court. And we will do it this year. We proceed from the materials of the case. According to the materials of the case, $100 million were transferred from the accounts of Banca de Economii, which were opened at Gazprombank in November 2014, to other accounts. We believe that Moldova can fully claim this money,” said Alexandru Stoianoglo. // 06.09.2021 - InfoMarket
