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Moldova’s national police said on Tuesday that oligarchs, a fugitive from Moldova, who were accused of $1 billion (€850 million) of bank fraud and other illegal schemes, were taken into custody in Greece.
Vladimir Plahotniuc fled Moldova in 2019 after facing a series of corruption charges, including allegations of accomplice in a scheme in which $1 billion disappeared from Moldovan Bank in 2014.
Plahotniuc denied any fraud.
Moldovan police said in a statement that two Moldovan citizens, including Plahotniuc, who was on Interpol’s international nomination list in February, were notified by Interpol’s office in Athens.
Authorities did not name other detainees.
Organized crime tackling Greek police forces said Interpol is seeking Plahotniuc on allegedly participating in criminal organizations, fraud and money laundering.
Moldova’s Justice Department and the prosecutor’s office are in the process of communicating information and beginning to seek extradition of Plahotniuc and other detainees, government officials told the Associated Press.
One of Moldova’s wealthiest men, Plahotniuc fled from Moldova to the United States in June 2019 after failing to form a government with the Democrats.
The US declared his Persona Nongrata in 2020, and his whereabouts were unknown for years.
Influential businessmen and politicians were added to the US State Department sanctions list in 2022 due to suspected corruption.
The charges included the management of the country’s law enforcement agencies to target political and business rivals and interfere in Moldova’s elections.
He was added to the UK sanctions list in 2022 and was banned from entering the country. His assets were frozen in the UK and its overseas territories.
Plahotniuc was accused of his efforts to engage in a Russian political campaign and derail Moldova’s pro-EU course.
News of his arrest are likely to be seen positively by President Maia Sandou’s camp and her Romanian and EU supporters ahead of the key parliamentary elections in September.
Additional sources •AP
