Grand Theft Moldova
The bank theft was so outsized and bold that citizens of the Republic of Moldova came out in the streets this past May by the thousands to protest: “We want our billion back!”
The Russian Laundromat, a large multi-billion money laundering machine uncovered last year by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), used the services of several residents of a small town near Kyiv.
When US$ 20 billion in dirty money swirled out of Russia and into Europe in one of the biggest money laundering operations yet uncovered in Eastern Europe, investigators in Moldova and Russia set to work to track down how it was done and who was behind it.
It may be the biggest money-laundering operation in Eastern Europe -- a virtual laundromat operating through banks and companies connected to powerful people in the region.
The Laundromat -- the biggest money-laundering operation yet uncovered in post-Soviet territory—was unusually well connected.
German-based Kempinski Hotels S.A., Europe’s oldest luxury hotel group, is joining forces with the Russian-Montenegrin company Soho Hotels to jointly manage the first 5-star hotel in Bar, a coastal town in southern Montenegro.
Ruslan Milchenko, formerly with the Russian police, today heads the anti-corruption agency Analitika and Bezopasnost (Analyses and Security) and knows all about Moscow-style money laundering.
Law enforcement reports obtained by OCCRP indicate that one of the oldest and biggest banks in the Republic of Moldova, Moldindconbank, has been used in the biggest money laundering operation in Eastern Europe in recent years.
Banking records obtained by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) indicate that the Latvian bank Trasta Komercbanka was the final destination for billions of dollars that left Russia in a massive money laundering scheme.