“Dirty Money’ Politics”Moldova’s Struggle Against Russian Election Meddling

By Matthew Grace

Sniffer dogs in Chisinau Airport have been on high alert searching for money that might be linked to Russian interference in Moldovan politics. Customs officers began finding large amounts of money on passengers arriving from connecting flights from Moscow and discovered passengers who had never left Moldova before returning from Russia with “wads of notes”, “Almost everyone had money: 2,000, 3,000, 7,000 euros” stated Ruslan Alexandrov, the head of customs, and that that the amounts themselves were not illegal, but the patterns were very suspicious. He went on, “There were certain flights: Moscow-Istanbul-Chisinau, Moscow-Yerevan-Chisinau” and that “normally people don’t come in with that much money. Not from Moscow”. The money has been traced to the Russian PSB bank, but the original provider is unknown. After seizing money, in a day alone the officers gathered 1.5 million dollars, and no passenger asked for their money to be returned. These cash mules are suspected to be involved with an ongoing operation to buy political influence by a “fugitive Moldovan Oligarch named Ilan Shor” who was convicted of major fraud in Chisinau and currently resides in Russia, who refuse to extradite him.

President Maia Sandu lost the first round of elections this past week to what she claimed as “bribery” while running on strict pro-EU platforms against many openly pro-Russian candidates and plans for a run-off vote. There was also a referendum regarding Moldova’s goal of “EU accession in the constitution” that narrowly passed but had been expected to be a resounding approval. Moscow has denied any election interference, but Moldova’s chief anti-corruption prosecutor Veronica Dragalin who has been working on the Ilan Shor case said she was “not aware of anywhere else where we’ve seen such a brazen and open attempt to corrupt an election” and to have the EU referendum fail. Viorel Cernauteanu, the chief of police, stated they have found as many as 130,000 voters that have received payments totaling over 39 million dollars from this scheme which equates to about 10% of the electorate, but this is not hard to believe as Moldova is one of Europe’s poorest countries. President Sandu commented on Moldova’s election: “This has been a very difficult campaign with a lot of lies and dirty money,” and asked voters to “put our country out of harm’s way” and prevent her opponents “derailing Moldova from its European path”.