“The Commission of Inquiry has 99 percent of the report ready. We are drafting the decision on the commission’s report, generically called “Laundromat”. We will ask the Permanent Bureau to convene a Parliament plenary sitting for a hearing. Subsequently, the report will have an English version for international institutions,” announced Inga Grigoriu, president of the parliamentary Commission of Inquiry.

In this context, Inga Grigoriu also mentioned sending the report to national institutions’ representatives, in order for them to take necessary actions.

The Commission was established on November 30, 2020 with the scope of clarifying the conditions that led to the money laundering in high proportions through the courts and financial-banking institutions of Moldova. It aimed to identify the culprits, draw them to liability in accordance with the state’s legislation, as well as clean state institutions of directly or indirectly involved people in the Laundromat scheme.

Five years since the detention of magistrates

In September 2016, 16 magistrates received 30-day arrest warrants for their involvement in the Laundromat Case, which saw approximately US$20 billion laundered through Moldova’s court system. Initially, the case included 17 judges, two of them died, and the third managed to leave Moldova. The other 14 cases were sent to the court at the beginning of February 2017, and the criminal case is still pending.

In September, the judges requested reinstatement. The anti-corruption prosecutors asked for the removal from prosecution of 13 former and current judges involved in the Laundromat case for accusing complicity in money laundering, without meeting the elements of the crime. 

In October 2020, five judges targeted in the “Laundromat” case officially returned to office. The members of the Superior Council of Magistracy accepted their requests for reinstatement in the positions they held until September 2016, with the payment of salaries for the period in which they had been suspended.

For more insight into the Laundromat scheme investigation:

• The Forgotten Cases of the Detained Moldovan Judges in the 2016 Laundromat

• Why the Judges Involved in the Russian Laundromat Return to Office