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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.
You can't just do this without insider help. And by insiders, I mean government officials.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
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.
As far as Eastern European country bank heists go, this guy is an amateur. The way professionals do it is by first controlling the government and the media. Then you steal the money (say some 7-8 billion) by funneling them through a chain of hollow companies to offshore accounts. Finally you set one of your partners with whom you have unsettled depth as the fall guy, while you yourself use your political connection to become the head of the local equivalent of the FBI:
Bulgaria's CorpBank: A Tangled Web Of Fraud
I had remembered that there was a small, Eastern European country that has a population of around 3 million and occupies about 13,000 square miles of territory. But I couldn't remember its name up until now - only that it rhymed with a part of the female anatomy.
GS would love to hire this guy.
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!
I also am quite fond of Moldova. Lots of sights to see, and wine to drink.
Professional Genius
You steal $1000 dollars and the police look for you. You steal $100,000 and the FBI looks for you. You steal $10,000,000 and the banks hire you. You steal $1,000,000,000 and the lawyers get you off on a technicality.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Right?! I just don't understand why Moldova won't embrace the job creators like we do in the US. This man is a hero of capitalism.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
And in unrelated news Jon Corzine hired a new 28 year old assistant with banking experience in Moldova...
Freaking Moldova can put a banker in jail, why can't we?
"There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
It is immaterial to the perpetrator of the fleecing here whether the government bails out the banks or not. The perpetrator has already taken the money via having it loaned, so whether the bank goes bankrupt or not doesn't matter to them, but it does matter to the government.
Banks are in an interesting position since they have control over assets that can far exceed the bank's actual value. Of course, legally the bank cannot just take these assets since they are storing deposits on behalf of customers, but they can lend out this money (minus a % they have to keep in hand at all times per regulation).
So a scheme could work like so:
- Buy a controlling interest in a bank, one where the purchase cost is a small fraction of the deposits the bank manages.
- Make transactions (selling debt, taking loans, etc) to allow the bank to have as much cash on hand as possible.
- Lend out all of this cash to companies you control, with no collateral on the loans.
- Have those companies pay the money to other companies you control for services etc.
- The first set of companies now all default on their loans, and there is no collateral to pursue.
- Bank goes bankrupt (or gets bailed out), doesn't matter to you either way.
- Roll around in your money, which is now off-shore so it can't be seized.
Sounds like Elbonian banking.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Things must be pretty pathetic, if you must bring up Iran-Contras affair to defend a 21st-century Democratic politician. But, yes, those lost e-mails really are not like that. Whatever you might think of Lt-Colonel Norton and that entire things, that business was not for personal gain.
Losing would've been. But it was deliberate destruction of records. And lying to Congress.
Duude, you are talking to a Ukrainian expat :-)
If the said pounding really was, what Clinton and Lerner were "facing", I would've been content — and fighting to stop the sexual abuse of inmates. But one of the women retired with full pension, and the other one is fixing to become President — with 46% of the nation retaining "favourable" opinion of her... Maybe, Americans ought to learn, what "Maidan" has come to mean too...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I'm pretty sure in general it's illegal to take out a loan with no intention of paying it back. That's the bare minimum I can think of. There's also the fact that while he had a controlling share of the banks, it doesn't sound like he completely owned them, so he defrauded the other shareholders of the bank. Then there are the main victims--all of the bank's customers. It's pretty blatantly illlegal to set up a bank, take deposits, and then walk off with them. This is doing exactly that but using some other companies to do the walking off part. I'd be stunned if there were enough loopholes for this guy to plausibly claim that what he did was illegal. However, I wouldn't be totally surprised if he was friendly enough with the government to get off with a slap on the wrist. I have no idea how the legal system works over there, but I do know that he has a lot of money to spread around if he needs to.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
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.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
So now wiping a hard drive is a Hillary? I'm not up to date on this, when did they send out the memo?
I'm sorry, that information has been Hillaried.