The former prime minister from Chisinau, Vlad Filat, has one month left until he finds out the sentence in the case in which he is accused of money laundering. In the last word he uttered in court, the one who was discussing state issues with the President of Romania, being in the arms of his mistress, declared that his file was fabricated on political criteria and that there is no evidence to confirm the accusations brought by the prosecutors. The politician asked the court to acquit him. The copies of several documents that reached the EvZ show that the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM), founded and led by Vladimir Filat, benefited from the money stolen from the Banca de Economii with the „easy” hand of Ilan Şor. And that this money was used for consulting services that PLDM benefited from in the electoral campaign.
Vlad Filat is accused of having, during 2013, laundered particularly large amounts of money, using an intermediary with whom he is in a relationship of affinity, to carry out the transfers.
Thus, on July 1, 2013, the accused would have concluded a contract for assistance in the electoral campaign for a political party in the parliamentary elections of November 2014, with a consulting company in Washington, USA.
For the contracted services, the accused would have paid to the non-resident company the total amount of 12,847,902 lei, making periodic transfers from the accounts of the companies managed by the intermediary, in which financial means obtained through corruption offenses from the Banca de Economii were deposited.
The prosecutors asked for 7 years in prison for the former prime minister.
The last word of Vlad Filat: „I am not guilty. Make the right decision!”
In the last word of the defendant Vlad Filat, pronounced on February 29, Vlad Filat presented himself as a victim of the prosecutors, judges, of Vlad Plahotniuc and Ilan Şor. At one point, the former prime minister warned the panel that those who will answer if „he will be illegally convicted” will not answer the prosecutors, but the judges.
Vlad Filat said that he will write a complaint against the prosecutor and made it clear to the judges that they could be held accountable if they convict him: „The decisions of the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) do not mention prosecutors. Only the judges who made the decision”.
Filat also said that there is no evidence, that the prosecutors presented only some photocopies and that the witnesses were not heard in court.
Filat also mentioned his wedding godfather, Ion Rusu, who gave statements against him. The former prime minister declared that Ion Rusu died because he destroyed his health in prison and that he was forced to make statements that put him at a disadvantage.
„It’s been nine years since this file was started in my name and five years since this file was examined in court. A lot has changed during this period. People have changed. Not only the prosecutors have changed”, declared Vlad Filat.
How prosecutors „falsified” the case.
The former Moldovan prime minister previously stated that the transfers he is accused of were organized by prosecutors. As well as the company, it was also arranged by the Moldovan prosecutors, at the behest of Plahotniuc.
„Certainly, the money went to Şor’s company, and from Şor’s company to companies, including Plahotniuc. Including, providing services, judicial and so on. But the amount assigned to me by a formula was transferred to Rhodes. The amount was withdrawn from the company account a year before my conviction. I had no attribution”, declared Filat.
Vlad Filat also gave specific names: „Prosecutor Ivanov (Mihail n.r.) who was the mastermind of these money transfers to Rhodes until not long ago he was deputy head of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office”.
Prosecutor Ivanov rejected the accusation.
Contacted by phone, the former anti-corruption prosecutor, Adriana Bețişor, who led the criminal investigation against Filat, said that the former prime minister is lying and that there is evidence in the file that incriminates him. „It’s the bank transfers. There are also copies of the mandates of Filat’s lawyer who represented the company’s interests in court,” Bețişor told us.
Prosecutors’ version
According to the anti-corruption prosecutors, during the years 2013-2014, the group of companies registered in Romania EAST GLOBAL BUSINESS SRL and NEXT ESTATE INVESTMENT SRL, through the accounts opened at RAIFFEISEN BANK, transferred funds in the total amount of approximately USD 2,746,005 to the consulting company GREENBERG QUINLAN ROSNER RESEARCH, registered in the USA, accounts opened at UNITED BANK, no. Account 2259001693.
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SC EAST GLOBAL BUSINESS SRL |
RO85RZBR0000060015554656 |
RAIFFEISEN BANK |
|
RO69RZBR0000060015554653 |
RAIFFEISEN BANK |
|
|
SC NEXT ESTATE INVESTMENT SRL |
RO14RZBR0000060013628835 |
RAIFFEISEN BANK |
|
RO19RZBR0000060013628842 |
RAIFFEISEN BANK |
|
|
RO42RZBR0000060012309422 |
RAIFFEISEN BANK |
The prosecutors established that EAST GLOBAL BUSINESS SRL and NEXT ESTATE INVESTMENT SRL were controlled by Filat through the interposed companies.
It should be mentioned that the payments made by the companies EAST GLOBAL BUSINESS SRL and NEXT ESTATE INVESTMENT SRL to the American company GREENBERG QUINLAN ROSNER RESEARCH
Following the investigations, the prosecutors established that from the funds transferred by EAST GLOBAL BUSINESS SRL and NEXT ESTATE INVESTMENT SRL to GREENBERG QUINLAN ROSNER RESEARCH, approx. S.A., BC UNIBANK S.A. and BC BANCA SOCIALĂ S.A.
The scheme of Vlad Filat and Ilan Şor. How the money got to the Americans
On 19.11.2013, BC UNIBANK S.A. controlled by Ilan Şor, granted a bank loan in the amount of 22,000,000 lei to PROVOLIROM SRL. That company, which appears in the Kroll Report, was controlled by Ilan Şor. In 2021, the founder and de jure administrator of the respective company was sentenced by the Chisinau Court to six years in prison, being found guilty in the bank fraud case.
The woman declared in court that she managed the company through Alexandru Boiarschi, an old acquaintance. He would have remunerated her monthly with 100 USD, being invited sometimes to sign some documents.
On the same day, FRANCES TRADING LP credits the account of the off-shore company OVERSEAS PROPERTY SOLUTIONS LTD, registered in Seychelles, with 250,000 USD, the accounts opened at the Latvian bank RIETUMU BANKA.
At the same time, from the funds received in the account, on 22.11.2013 the company OVERSEAS PROPERTY SOLUTIONS LTD transferred the amount of USD 149,691 from the account held in the Latvian bank RIETUMU BANKA to account no. LI5808803103424600001 held in Liechtenstein bank VALARTIS BANK AG.
Later, on 22.11.2013, from bank account no. LI5808803103424600001, OVERSEAS PROPERTY SOLUTIONS LTD transfers USD 127,000 to FERENTA COMMERCE LLP, registered in UK, accounts opened at VALARTIS BANK AG.
On the same day, the company FERENTA COMMERCE LLP transfers USD 124,970 to the Romanian company NEXT ESTATE INVESTMENT SRL, no. account RO19RZBR0000060013628842, further, on 25.11.2013 NEXT ESTATE INVESTMENT SRL transfers the amount of USD 124,797 to the US company GREENBERG QUINLAN ROSNER RESEARCH, no. account 2295001693.
This scheme was used eight times to transfer the 2,746,005 to the US firm that developed electoral strategies for the PLDM.
The documents that confirm the involvement of Vlad Filat
A warning letter addressed, in November 2014, to Vlad Filat, as president of the PLDM, and to his former brother-in-law, Victor Roşca, as general secretary of the party, overturns the former prime minister’s defense strategy.
The letter is signed by Paul T. Kaplan, a representative of the US law firm Venable LLP, authorized by the company Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Inc. (GQRR), which pressed services for PLDM.
The letter requests urgent payment of the debt of $372,769 for services rendered by GQRR to PLDM. The document also includes Rodos Overseas Ltd, a company registered in Belize.
In the letter from the US law firm, it is mentioned that the two contracts with GQRR were signed by Victor Roşca „at your request and in your presence (V. Filat n.r.)”.
„Also, in Annex B, you will find the last three invoices issued and sent to you by GQRR, which demonstrate the total balance in the amount of $ 372,769 outstanding to GQRR, which also includes the additional services requested and personally authorized in the last months by Mr. Vlad Spinning.
As you know, Jeremy Rosner, Executive Vice President of GQRR, has personally and repeatedly requested payment of these outstanding amounts. Mr. Filat and others personally assured him that the payment is imminent,” the letter states.
As it appears from the document, Vlad Filat personally negotiated the contracts with GQRR.
Our team also came into possession of the copy of the contract signed on July 1, 2013 by Victor Roşca and Jeremy Rosner. The document was sent by email to Vlad Filat by Rosner.
„The purpose is to help the Client to obtain a deeper and continuous understanding of the Moldovan public opinion regarding a series of issues related to these needs and interests,” the contract states.
Is Filat’s acquittal being prepared?
One of the main arguments of the former prime minister’s defense is that the prosecution’s witnesses were not heard in court. It is about Jeremy Rosner and Darius Jurggelevicius, a Lithuanian expert who worked for GQRR. Another witness, Ion Rusu, died.
The three made statements, however, at the stage of the criminal investigation.
At the meeting of May 4, 2023, the accuser Nadejda Busuioc requested the hearing, by rogatory commission, of the witnesses from outside the country. The court rejected the prosecutor’s approach as „unfounded”.
The accuser then did not question the impartiality of the court and did not request the recusal of the trial panel.
At the last court session, Nadejda Busuioc rejected the statements of Vlad Filat’s four defenders that there is no evidence to confirm the accusations against the former prime minister.
The accuser specified that bank statements and other documents were presented that prove that Filat is guilty of money laundering.
Nadejda Busuioc mentioned that the Republic of Moldova is a signatory to the Warsaw Convention on the laundering, discovery, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds of crime and the financing of terrorism, and thus assumed certain obligations.
He promised but „forgot”
After the last court session, Vlad Filat promised us an interview in which he was going to talk to us about the respective file, but also about the assets that would have been confiscated from him. It is reported that the former prime minister managed to keep his wealth, despite the court’s decision regarding confiscation.
Vlad Filat ignored our messages.
The controversial career of Vlad Filat
A graduate of the law faculty of the „Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași, Romania, Vlad Filat began to build a career in the business field, being, between 1994-1998, general manager at RoMold Trading SRL and president of the Administrative Council of Dosoft SA from Romania. In 1998, when he was 28 years old, he returned to the Republic of Moldova, being appointed as general director of the Department of Privatization and Administration of State Property.
Shortly after, he is appointed as Minister of State in the Government headed by Ion Sturza
In 2005, he obtained a deputy’s mandate, after running on the list of the Moldova Democratic Electoral Bloc, as a representative of the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM). Two years later, he leaves the ranks of the PDM and founds the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (PLDM), of which he is elected president.
In 2009, PLDM brought him to the seat of deputy. In September of the same year, he became prime minister, a position from which he was dismissed after three years and six months.
The government led by Filat was dismissed by the Parliament, through a motion of censure, because „it has become a corrupt, captive, blackmailable one, which acts against the country’s interests”. The decision of the deputies from that time created a precedent in the history of the Republic of Moldova, after the Constitutional Court decided that a prime minister dismissed for suspicion of corruption is unable to exercise his duties in a new mandate.
Following the November 2014 elections, Filat became a deputy again, but on October 15, 2015, the Parliament lifted his immunity, following a request from the then general prosecutor, Corneliu Gurin.
On the same day, Filat is detained and placed in custody, being suspected that, during his tenure as prime minister, he would have received financial means and assets in the amount of 250 million dollars from the businessman Ilan Şor, in exchange for various services.
In June 2016, he was found guilty by the magistrates of the Sect Court. Buiucani, sentenced to 9 years in prison and fined 60 thousand lei, with the deprivation of the right to hold certain public positions for a period of 5 years, and the „Order of the Republic” state distinction was also withdrawn.
By the sentence of the Court sect. Buiucani, the security measure was applied to Filat in the form of special confiscation of the assets, in total value of over 795 million lei. These included luxury cars, land and houses, as well as the shares he held in trading companies.
In December 2019, after being in the cold for four years and two months, the Chisinau Court decided to release him on parole before the deadline. Filat returned to the helm of the PLDM. Recently, he became active in political life, harshly criticizing the current government, led by his former subordinates in the Government, President Maia Sandu and Prime Minister Dorin Recean.
