Moldovan Anticorruption Prosecutors Conduct Searches In National Bank's $1Bln Fraud Case

Moldovan Anticorruption Prosecutors Conduct Searches in National Bank's $1Bln Fraud Case

The Moldovan Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office is conducting searches at the National Bank of Moldova in connection to the 2014 $1 billion fraud case, spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General's Office Maria Vieru told Sputnik on Wednesday

CHISINAU (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th April, 2020) The Moldovan Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office is conducting searches at the National Bank of Moldova in connection to the 2014 $1 billion fraud case, spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General's Office Maria Vieru told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"The Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office staff are carrying out searches at the National Bank of Moldova, the operation is part of a criminal case on the withdrawal of a billion dollars from the banking system," Vieru said.

According to the spokeswoman, further details will be provided upon the completion of the special operation.

In March, the former central bank head, Dorin Dragutanu, was detained as a suspect in the case, having spent 30 days in custody, after which he was transferred to house arrest in early April.

In 2014, Moldova was rocked by a major financial scandal when it turned out that a sum of $1 billion vanished from three Moldovan banks: Banca de Economii, Unibank and Banca Sociala. The perpetrators used complicated fraud schemes by transferring the money to the United Kingdom and Hong Kong and later depositing it into Latvian accounts. In 2015, US investigative consultancy Kroll was hired by the country's National Bank to investigate. The company's first report was leaked in 2015.