Moldovan tycoon and politician Vladimir Plahotniuc, who has been on the run since 2019, was arrested in Greece today, Moldovan police announced.
Plahotniuc fled Moldova for the United States (US) in 2019, facing a series of corruption charges and complicity in a scheme in which $2014 billion disappeared from a bank in XNUMX, which was about an eighth of Moldova's gross domestic product at the time.
Plahotnjuk denied any guilt.
Police said the Interpol office in Athens had detained another Moldovan citizen in the same case.
The Greek police's organized crime unit announced that Interpol is seeking Plahotniuc on suspicion of participating in a criminal organization, fraud, and money laundering.
The Moldovan Ministry of Justice and the Prosecutor's Office are currently exchanging information to initiate Plahotniuc's extradition, a government official in Chisinau said.
Plahotniuc is a former member of the Moldovan parliament and one of the richest people in that country, and he fled to the US after failing to form a government with his Democratic Party.
The US declared him persona non grata in 2020, and he was added to the State Department's sanctions list in 2022 for alleged corruption.
Plahotniuc was then accused of controlling law enforcement to target political and business rivals and interfering in the electoral process in Moldova.
He was also added to the UK sanctions list in 2022, where his assets were frozen.
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