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.
As we all know, not a smidgen of corruption was involved in the disappearance of certain e-mails at the IRS recently. And the only emails deleted by the former Secretary of State from the private server she illegally used were those about yoga routines and the like.
So, if America's public figures can lose important records without being corrupt, why are we automatically making such accusations against the little Moldova?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.