The Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS) announces on August 10 that it has resumed criminal prosecution in an episode of the file generically referred to as “The Bank Fraud” – an episode that concerns the Banca Sociala bank, for which the prosecution was closed in June 2021.

According to the PCCOCS, the episode, which prosecutors have resumed investigating, relates to damages caused to the state in the order of tens of millions of lei.

“The prosecutor’s office notes that the reasons for the previous closure of the case were not based on considerations of the Supreme Court of Justice’s ruling of 10 May 2018, which rejected a petition filed against the Social Bank’s actions to recover money from “bank fraud.” Basically, the judicial authority found that the contract concerned in the case was fictitious and was drawn up with the intention of creating artificial obligations and creating money,” PCCOCS representatives note.

Now, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, the resumption of the criminal prosecution from January 2022, ordered by the acting chief prosecutor of the PCCOCS, has been challenged at the Chisinau Ciocana Court.

“The appeal was filed by a person who is not a party to the case and who had not been assigned any procedural status by the PCCOCS prosecutors. However, the judge satisfied his request and ordered the cessation of the criminal prosecution, by the conclusion pronounced on Monday, August 8,” PCCOCS said.

The PCCOCS prosecutors announce that they are going to appeal it to the Chisinau Court of Appeal, in order to continue investigating this episode of “bank fraud,” so that “the guilty parties will be held accountable, even if they benefit from improper influence in the justice system.”

On 4 July 2022, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA) announced the completion of a new episode in the criminal case generically called “bank fraud”. This episode targeted Dorin Drăguțanu, former governor, and two former deputy governors of the National Bank of Moldova (NBM) Ion Sturzu and Emma Tăbârță. Prosecutors have seized the assets of the former NBM governor, totalling 1,684,072.01 lei, and the assets of a former NBM deputy governor, totalling 2,480,660.3 lei.

According to the AP, the former governor and the two former deputy governors of the NBM are accused of complicity in the commission of the crime of swindling, committed with the use of their official position, by a criminal organisation, in particularly large proportions, as well as money laundering, committed by several persons, with the use of their official position, by a criminal organisation, in particularly large proportions.