US EditionA Moldovan oligarch and ex-opposition leader gets a 19-year sentence in a $1 billion bank fraud case
Prosecutors said the former Democratic Party leader led a criminal organization and laundered money tied to Moldova’s $1 billion banking scandal.
- Vladimir Plahotniuc was sentenced to 19 years in prison for embezzling $1 billion from Moldovan banks in 2014.
- He controlled Moldova's government during the 2010s and fled the country in 2019, later being detained in Greece and extradited back to Moldova in 2025.
- Plahotniuc denies wrongdoing and calls the case politically motivated, while some view his conviction as evidence of Moldova's judicial reforms and shift toward European democratic values.
- He was sanctioned by the U.S. and U.K. for corruption and undermining democracy.
56 Articles
56 Articles
Vladimir Plahotniuc was once the most powerful man in the Republic of Moldova. Now he was sentenced to 19 years in prison for the "billion-dollar robbery" - a "historical" sentence for the EU candidate country.
A Moldovan court has sentenced oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc to 19 years in prison in a case related to the disappearance of a billion dollars (850 million euros) from the country's banking system. The former businessman, MP and leader of the Democratic Party of Moldova fled Moldova in 2019 after facing a series of corruption charges.
Moldovan oligarch Vlad Plahotniuk was sentenced to 19 years in prison on Wednesday for a bank fraud dubbed the “heist of the century” in the Eastern European country. The participants in the fraud caused damage of $1 billion (20.8 billion crowns), which at the time corresponded to 12 percent of Moldova’s GDP.
He was arrested last year in Athens while preparing to fly to Dubai.
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