28-Year-Old Businessman Accused of Stealing $1 Billion From Moldova

An anonymous reader writes: You could be excused for not knowing much about Moldova — the small, Eastern European country has a population of around 3 million and occupies about 13,000 square miles of territory. Its GDP is just over $6 billion — which makes accusations that 28-year-old Ilan Shor stole close to a billion dollars from the country's banks quite interesting. A recent report (PDF) says Shor led a group that bought controlling stakes in three Moldovan banks and then passed transactions between them to increase their liquidity. The banks then issued massive loans to companies owned or related to Shor. $767 million disappeared from the banks, and the country's central bank thinks that total will rise to $1 billion. It was forced to bail out the banks to keep the economy from crashing. Widespread corruption led to many records of Shor's actions being "lost" or outright deleted. He's now charged and placed under house arrest while the investigation continues.

Comments

Moldova

[Anonymous Coward]

Most Europeans that don't live in countries near Moldova know it for its wine. I've actually been there (though only for about 3 days) and it is quite a poor country too by European standards. I imagine this is going to hit the Moldovan people pretty hard.

Re:I know the company from the movie RED 2

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually... compared to other Eastern European countries which all had this happen to them repeatedly, Moldova ROCKS! You know why? They caught him, while he was still in the country and they have a good chance at recovering some of those funds. That is a huge victory compared to the usual standard in such cases in Eastern Europe. GO MOLDOVA!

Re:So then

[Copid]

Yep, the socialists are totally into the idea of taking money from a bunch of poor people and giving it to one rich guy. You have their philosophy all figured out.