In August 2025, the Moldovan government acquired the rights to show the TV series “Plakha. He talked about the transformations that the country went through until a “real democratic government” was at its head. The prototype of the main character is Volodymyr Plahotniuk, once the most influential political puppeteer of the neighboring country and the actual owner of the Democratic Party there. Just when Moldovan viewers were watching the last series, himself Plahotniuk was extradited from Greece to Moldova — to bring him to court.
On April 22, 2026, the first court issued a sentence of 19 years. The court found Plahotniuk guilty of creating a criminal organization, fraud and money laundering in a separate case from the so-called theft of a billion. In favor of the state, more than 39 million dollars and 3.5 million euros of basic damages should be collected from him, as well as millions of interest on these amounts. The defense has already announced that it will appeal the verdict. The prosecution also called the sentence too lenient. Therefore, the final “assembly” is still ahead.
Theft of a billion and a laundromat
The case in which Plahotniuc was convicted concerns the theft in 2012-2014 of approximately $1 billion (approximately 12% of Moldova’s GDP at the time) from three Moldovan banks: Banca de Economii, Banca Sociala and Unibank. He was found guilty of complicity in the embezzlement of funds, as well as fraud, money laundering and the creation of a criminal organization. The court also agreed with the statement of the investigation that Plahotniuk, through related structures, received part of the stolen funds — about 39 million dollars and 3.5 million euros.
The theft of a billion provoked mass protests, the EU and the IMF froze international aid, in 2016 Prime Minister Filat was condemned.
The billion case was actually part of a much wider scheme. Back in 2014, the journalistic community OCCRP described in detail the operation to launder 20 billion dollars from Russia through Moldindconbank, which received the eloquent nameMoldovan laundromat.
The algorithm was simple: two shell companies concluded a fictitious contract, one “did not return the debt”, and Moldovan judges certified the debt as real, and the money left Russia already clean. The scheme was maintained at the expense of the Moldovan participant. This was the basis for the consideration of cases in Moldovan courts.
Moldindconbank at that time was under the control of Vyacheslav Platon, a Moldovan businessman, former deputy and the de facto architect of the scheme. Through the “Moldovan laundromat” scheme, the funds allocated in Russia for the construction of the Olympics in Sochi were used. The main beneficiaries of the scheme were the Russian branches, while the Moldovan ones were its operators, receiving their interest.
Among the latter, in particular, Ilan Shor’s companies appear, which received about 22 million dollars from the “laundromat”. At that time, Ilan Shor performed an equally useful function in the system, being an obedient associate of Plahotniuk with his own corporate structures and willingness to take risks.
For example, such: in October 2015, it was Shor who submitted a ten-page “confession of crimes” to the prosecutors, where he claimed that for several years he had paid the then Prime Minister Filat about 250 million and retaliated only with house arrest, and then he became a witness and became the mayor of the city of Orgeia (Orgiyeva).
For Moldova, the scam was profitable: part of the money settled inside the country, in the pockets of the operators. The problems started when its members could not share the profits. At least the fact that a group of 39 mostly shell companies of Shor participated at the same time suggests this opinion and in the “laundromat” and in the “theft of a billion.
To investigate the scheme, the National Bank of Moldova hired an independent auditor – the Kroll company (in Ukraine, it investigated the Privatbank case on behalf of the NBU, as well as the murder of Georgiy Gongadze on the order of Leonid Kuchma’s entourage). In the Kroll report, Plahotniuk, Filat and Shor were named among the likely main beneficiaries. At the same time, while Plahotniuk maintained control over Moldovan politics, Kroll’s conclusions never turned into a criminal case. The second part of the report was published only after his escape.
Over time, the paths of all three diverged: Filat went free with the coming to power of Maia Sandu, Plahotniuk fled the country, and Shor came out of the shadows for good – no longer as an associate of Plahotniuk, but as an independent mouthpiece of aggressive Russian influence, directing schemes from Moscow.
Incubator of neo-communists
Plahotniuk developed his first political muscles under the protection of the communists. In the 2000s, he had close business ties to the family of President Vladimir Voronin and was considered close to the ruling Communist Party (PCRM). According to the Moldovan media, Plahotniuk spent generously on Communist Party activities, financed party newspapers and was almost the personal “purse” of the Voronin family. He even personally introduced Plahotniuk to the then President of Romania, Ion Ilescu. And until 2010, Plahotniuk headed the Moldovan office of the Romanian oil company Petrom.
In April 2009, mass protests broke out in Moldova against the falsification of parliamentary elections. In the summer, other non-regular elections were held, and as a result, four parties that formed the Alliance for European Integration gained power: Vlad Filat’s Liberal Democratic Party, Mihai Ghimpu’s Liberal Party, Serafim Urekyan’s Nasha Moldova Alliance, and Mariana Lupu’s Democratic Party. Plahotniuk was already the sponsor of the latter at that time.
However, the 2009 elections were only one of the episodes of Plahotniuk’s absorption of former partners. In December 2015, after the arrest of Plahotniuk’s main competitor – Prime Minister Vlad Filat – 14 members of parliament from the Communist Party left the faction and announced their readiness to cooperate with the Democratic Party. In March 2017, all 14 officially joined the DPM. According to the anti-corruption prosecutor’s office, they received significant bribes from Plahotniuk. As a result, the party, which won 15.8% and 19 mandates in the 2014 elections, turned into a dominant force in the parliament, but not because of the support of the voters, but because of the purchase of deputies.
Geopolitical maneuvers
Plahotniuk built his power based on the principle of acceptability for various external players at the same time. In the West, he positioned himself as the only alternative to pro-Russian forces, while in the Russian direction – as a player with whom you can negotiate.
At the beginning of May 2016, Plahotniuk met in Washington with Victoria Nuland, Deputy Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia. At the same time, the oligarch did not hold any formal government positions. But this did not bother Washington: according to the results of the meeting, Nuland supported the course of the government formed by the PDM: “Continue at the same pace, and we will support you.”
A joint photo of Nuland and Plahotniuk was circulated by Moldovan media at the time as proof that Washington was on his side. And it really was: even before the meeting with Plahotniuc, Nuland met in Bucharest with the president of Romania and Moldovan officials and assured them that Washington fully supports the current Democratic government.
Since then, Bucharest has consistently acted as Plahotniuc’s Moldovan lawyer before Brussels, until the scandal involving the theft of a billion made further defense impossible.
On the Ukrainian side, Plahotniuk had a relationship with then-President Petro Poroshenko, whom he called his close friend.
The most telling manifestation of the relationship was extradition of Vyacheslav Platon, who at that time was called by the Moldovan law enforcement agencies as one of the key organizers of both the “Moldovan laundromat” and the “theft of a billion”. Platon hid in Ukraine, using his Ukrainian citizenship. However, the passport of a citizen of Ukraine did not save him: on August 29, 2016, Platon was extradited to Moldova. Getting out of the police car, he shouted: “Plahotnyuk stole all the money!”.
Another episode already related to Kyiv Judge Mykola Chaus, caught for a bribe of 150,000 dollars in August 2016. Having judicial immunity, Chaus avoided immediate arrest, and later ended up in Modov. According to the materials of investigations by RISE Moldova and Slidstvo.info, not without the assistance of Plahotniuk. The ex-judge hid in Moldova for years, until Zelenskyi personally raised the issue of his extradition at a meeting with Sandu in 2019. Later, in 2022, he was kidnapped and brought home by Ukrainian special services.
An equally important episode was the joint scheme around the Moldavian Metallurgical Plant in Rybnytsia, which is located in Transnistria. Scrap metal from Ukraine entered the plant to circumvent Ukrainian sanctions through an intermediary connected to Plahotniuk, while the government of Moldovan Prime Minister Pavel Filip, Plahotniuk’s man, meanwhile promoted the lifting of these sanctions by Kyiv.
Regarding Russia, Plahotniuk pursued a double policy. On the one hand, his party was strongly anti-Russian in its rhetoric. On the other hand, it maintained fairly close relations with the Russian Federation. For example, in 2017, Vasyl Botnar became the director of the Moldovan Information and Security Service, the main special service of the country. As it later became known from the so-called “Chernov Archives” (leaked documents from the unit of the Putin administration that dealt with Moldovan affairs), this appointment took place after a meeting between President Dodon and Alexey Miller, CEO of Gazprom, and was the result of a pact between Plahotniuk and Dodon.
In June 2019, this pact received documentary confirmation. The recording made at the DPM headquarters shows Plahotniuk handing a black package to the president and leader of the Socialist Party, Ihor Dodon. Moldovan prosecutors called the sums that were probably in the package – from 600 thousand to 1 million dollars in cash. These funds were intended to finance the expenses of Dodon’s party. The case called “ball” is still being considered in court.
In the same 2019, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmytro Kozak publicly stated that Plahotniuk offered Moscow a deal: to reorient Moldova towards Russia and turn it into a federation where Transnistria would maintain ties with the Kremlin. Although the democrats themselves never publicly voiced such plans, in the future after fleeing the country, Plahotniuk sought contacts specifically with Kozak in order to return to Moldovan politics.
According to The Insider’s investigation, since June 2024, Putin’s deputy head of the administration, Dmytro Kozak, has been negotiating with Plahotniuk about his return to the Moldovan political scene. The Kremlin expected to use his influence and resources on the eve of parliamentary elections in September 2025, and Plahotniuk himself probably saw this as an opportunity.
The turning point of 2019
The outcome of 2019 still remains a unique geopolitical moment in the history of the region: Washington, Brussels and Moscow presented a united front against one man — Plahotniuk. This was facilitated by the crisis that followed the parliamentary elections of 24 February 2019, in which no party won a majority: the Socialists won 35 seats, Plahotniuc’s Democrats – 30, the pro-European bloc ACUM — 26, Shore’s party — 7.
Four months of negotiations did not allow creating a coalition: socialists and democrats publicly demonstrated hostility, although they secretly cooperated for years, ACUM fundamentally refused to sit down at the table with Plahotniuk. In the end, the Constitutional Court announced that the three-month deadline for the formation of the government had expired, and recognized all the decisions of the parliament as null and void.
The same day ACUM led by Maya Sandu and the socialists of Dodon announced an unexpected coalition: Maya Sandu became the prime minister, the socialist Zinaida Grechanii became the speaker. For some time, there were still two governments in Moldova at the same time, each considered the other illegitimate — the Constitutional Court controlled by Plahotniuc declared the coalition illegal, removed Dodon and declared Philip acting. the president
The coalition was not formed by itself, but after the Deputy Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Kozak, the European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Johannes Hahn and the director of the relevant department of the US State Department, Brad Freden, flew to Chisinau at the same time. All three held separate meetings with party leaders and President Dodon, calling for stabilization and government formation.
Afterwards, EU Commissioner Hahn and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini recognized the legitimacy of the new government in a joint statement. The Russian Foreign Ministry did the same. Then Germany, Great Britain, France, Sweden and Poland. Kozak publicly revealed that the idea of federalization, with which Plahotniuk was now scaring the public, the oligarch himself had previously proposed to Moscow. Putin called the situation a “seizure of power by oligarchs.
On June 14, US Ambassador to Moldova Derek Hogan spent 15 minutes alone with Plahotniuk at the headquarters of the Democratic Party. Within hours, Philip’s government announced its resignation. Plahotniuk disappeared from the country, only to return in 2025 and a year later to receive 19 years in prison. However, time will tell if this is really the end of the story.
Marianna Prysiazhnyuk
