At the request of the acting general prosecutor Eduard Harunjen, Supreme Council of Magistrate (CSM) agreed to prosecute 16 current and former judges, involved in laundering about 18 billion dollars in the Russian Federation through the Moldovan judiciary.  This decision was taken in a closed- door meeting on Tuesday, September 20. This information was confirmed for Anticoruptie.md by Teo Carnat, member of CSM.

Teo Carnat declined to provide details about the identity of judges. "Some of them have already quitted the system. Suspension of their resignation was ruled for them. Other judges were suspended from work. I cannot disclose names to prevent prejudice of the investigation", said the member of the Council. He said that CSM agreed to prosecute all persons from the list of the general prosecutor, without any exceptions.

Fifteen judges, former magistrates and judicial executors were arrested on Tuesday, September 20 by anticorruption prosecutors and officers of National Anti-corruption Center. The searches took place simultaneously at the workplace and in the resident places of suspects.  The operation is still in progress, says the spokesperson of the National Anti-corruption Center Angela Starinschi.

Earlier, Ziarul National in partnership with the Center for Investigative Journalism revealed in an investigation that during 2010 - 2014, Moldova was transformed into a true "laundery" of large amounts of money from Russian Federation. Scheme included 17 Moldovan magistrates who have legalized illegal profits. Many of the judges, who gave verdicts on these cases, were involved in the raider attacks in Moldova's banking system, but they were allowed to quit honorably the judiciary.

„Moldovan scheme”  of millions of dollars legalization from Russia was carried out as following: based on the requests of offshore companies in the UK, Belize, USA, South Africa, New Zealand and Scotland, moldovan magistrates compelled the Russian companies and Moldovan citizens to return  debts of millions of dollars. 23 Moldovan citizens were involved in this scheme, some of them did not realize about the “deal” after they put signature on blank sheets in exchange for a few hundred dollars.

Judges involved in „Russian laundromat”: