Moldova probes illegal party funding, arrests made
By April 2025, the Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office (PA) had filed 18 criminal cases related to the illegal financing of parties linked to the Șor group.
In total, four convictions have been handed down, one following a plea agreement. These cases involve offenses between 2022 and 2024, including accepting funds from organized crime, distributing undeclared funds, and engaging in political activities with illegally sourced resources. The amounts involved exceed tens of millions of lei, and those charged include deputies and territorial leaders linked to Șor.
Recent convictions
In the last five months, Moldovan courts have issued the first four convictions:
On March 19, Deputy Alexandr Nesterovschi was sentenced to 12 years for passive corruption and aiding the illegal funding of a political party linked to the Șor group. Nesterovschi is now in the Transnistrian region, supported by the Russian Federation Embassy in Chișinău, according to the Information and Security Service (SIS).
Deputy Irina Lozovan and her husband were sentenced to 6 and 5 years, respectively, on March 31, for complicity in funding the Renaissance Party with illegal funds.
On November 11, 2024, the Chișinău Court, Buiucani branch, issued the first conviction for illegal funding under a plea agreement: the defendant was fined 45,000 lei, and 613,500 lei was confiscated.
Fifteen other PA cases, including those involving Deputy Marina Tauber and Gagauzia Governor Evghenia Guțul, remain pending. Tauber's hearings are held in her absence, as she has been abroad for nearly three months after a Buiucani court allowed her to leave late last year.
On Tuesday, the same court rejected prosecutors’ request to arrest Governor Evghenia Guțul for 30 days, who is being investigated for complicity in illegally funding a political party and an electoral candidate by organized crime. Guțul is currently under 20-day preventive arrest in a separate case involving fraudulent electoral funds, illegal funding, and document forgery, handled by the Chișinău Municipal Prosecutor's Office.
In addition to Guțul and Tauber's cases, 13 more are pending, all concerning similar offenses: complicity in illegally funding the unconstitutional Șor Political Party. Defendants include heads of former Șor party offices in Ocnița, Ștefan-Vodă, Dondușeni, Fălești, Cimișlia, Edineț, Ungheni, Șoldănești, Soroca, Ialoveni, Drochia, Călărași, Basarabeasca, and Rezina districts.
Investigations indicate the accused received between 468,000 and over 9.7 million lei for anti-government protests, activist payments, and political influence from July to October 2022. In total, these 13 cases involve over 40 million lei.
The funds were managed through sophisticated money laundering and source concealment methods, including PYYPL cards from the UAE, sanctioned Russian MIR cards, and the PSB app, associated with Russia's Promsvyazbank, which law enforcement indicates transferred rubles to over 138,000 users in Moldova.
In September and October 2024 alone, over 39 million USD was transferred for election-related activities, according to the Anti-corruption Prosecutor's Office.
Translation by Iurie Tataru
