Three beneficiaries of some companies listed in the Kroll report were sentenced to six years in prison in the case of the billion-dollar bank fraud case.

Andrei Nirauța, the leader of Caritas Group, Ala Guțu, administrator of the company Provolirom and Tatiana Dolghina – the person who managed Dracard company, have contracted non-performing loans which would have caused a damage of over 550 million dollars to Banca de Economii, Banca Sociala, and Unibank.

The sentence motivated by the conviction was pronounced on July 20 this year.

The document mentions that the three defendants declared before the magistrates that “they voluntarily presented themselves to the Banca de Economii and signed credit agreements knowing about the illegality of receiving the loan”.

“They declared in a court hearing that they voluntarily presented themselves to the Banca de Economii bank and signed Credit Agreements knowing about the illegality of the loan, pursuing the purpose of disguising the nature of the origin of the funds. The funds were transferred in the form of payments for supplies, construction materials, and computers to non-resident companies registered in the United Kingdom.

In the summer of 2020, the prosecutors detained the presumed beneficiaries of three companies through which hundreds of millions of dollars were withdrawn from the three banks involved in the bank fraud. They testified in court in a review case in which controversial businessman Veaceslav Platon had previously been sentenced, irrevocably, to 18 years in prison. Platon allegedly obtained, through illegal schemes, about 1 billion lei (around 200 million euros) from Banca de Economii, following some loans granted for companies run by a third party.

Three managers of the companies investigated in the billion-dollar bank fraud case made statements for the first time about their involvement. They revealed the way the companies obtained millions of dollars under credit agreements causing over 550 million dollars damage to Banca de Economii, Banca Sociala, and Unibank. 

The administrators of the three companies that appear in the Kroll report told the judges that they knew nothing about the scheme in which they were involved and that they were paid $100 a month to sign documents. The Caritas Group, Provolirom, and Dracard companies’ representatives declared that “I didn’t know what I was signing”, “I don’t know how many contracts I signed” or “I don’t know what the amounts were.”

Read the whole investigation:

Billion-dollar Bank Fraud Testimonies: “Every Month He Gave Me $100 To Be Always Available on the Phone.”