PROSECUTORS SEARCHING THROUGH DPM OFFICE OWNED BY VLADIMIR PLAHOTNIUC

Prosecution Service officers are carrying out a search in the former central headquarters of the Democratic Party – a splendid new building owned by former party leader Vladimir Plahotniuc. The prosecutors appeared in the office all of a sudden early in the morning on Thursday.

Maria Vieru, Press Secretary of the Prosecutor General's Office, said the search is being done by officers from the Prosecution Service for Organized Crime and Special Cases [OCSC], “who are carrying out law-stipulated procedural actions within the framework of the investigation of one of the cases related to the major bank fraud”.

Observers presume that the search may have a relation to ex-MP Stefan Gatcan, who announced last Tuesday his leaving the parliamentary Socialist faction and joining the Pro Moldova group, but already on the following day he wrote an application on his resignation as a Member of Parliament.

Last Monday, Corneliu Furculita, Chairman of the parliamentary Socialist faction, sent information to the Prosecutor General's Office that Gatcan had been bribed by the Pro Moldova group that is controlled by fugitive oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc.

Last mid-May, Prosecutor General Alexander Stoianoglo stated openly that Plahotniuc was the main beneficiary of the one-billion-dollar bank fraud. Stoianoglo said that a criminal litigation had been initiated against Plahotniuc on three accusation articles – the formation of an organized criminal group, extortions, and a grand fraud. On the basis of these accusations, on May 22 the Court took a decision to arrest Plahotniuc for 30 days albeit in absentia. The Prosecutor General's Office has sent to the United States documents on the extradition of the Moldovan oligarch, but no new procedural actions have been undertaken with respect to Plahotniuc since then.