Oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc extradited, ahead of crucial elections in Moldova

2025-09-25 11:16:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Moldovan oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc has been extradited to Chisinau to face lengthy criminal charges, shocking the country just days before tense general elections, which have already been dogged by allegations of Russian interference.

Plahotniuc, who is involved in a decades-old bank fraud case known as the "theft of the century", arrived in the Moldovan capital this morning after being extradited from Greece, where he had been held since July.

Plahotniuc is the main suspect in a long-running investigation into the disappearance of around $1 billion from banks in the small and impoverished former Soviet republic in 2014. The amount was estimated to amount to around 12 percent of the country's total gross product.

Plahotniuc has been fighting the charges for years. He is expected to make his first appearance in a court in Chisinau on September 26. The businessman's arrival in Moldova comes as the country prepares for parliamentary elections scheduled for September 28, a vote that will determine whether the country moves closer to the European Union or falls further into Russia's political orbit.

President Maia Sandu and her pro-European Action and Solidarity Party are struggling to maintain their majority in Parliament, as they clash strongly with a political bloc led by former President Igor Dodon, who has maintained close ties to Moscow.

He has called the current democratically elected government a "criminal regime."

In a speech this week, Sandu warned that the country's independence and future with Europe were at risk, while accusing the Kremlin of pouring hundreds of millions of euros into the country to spread disinformation.

Also this week, Moldovan police said they had seized weapons and explosives across the country and arrested 74 people on charges of involvement in a plot to incite unrest. Some of those arrested reportedly had traveled to Serbia for training from Russian instructors, including with firearms.

Although bank robbery charges had been hanging over Plahotniuc for years, he served several terms in parliament as a member of the Democratic Party. In 2019, he left the district, shortly before receiving a criminal summons from Moldovan prosecutors.

He lived undisturbed in the United States for months and applied for political asylum, according to a lawsuit he filed in U.S. federal court. This asylum request was denied.

In January 2020, his US visa was revoked after then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that his corrupt actions undermined the rule of law and seriously compromised the independence of democratic institutions in Moldova. During this time, Plahotniuc was living in Miami, Florida./ CNA