The criminal cases involving former head of Moldovan Railways (CFM), Iurie Topală, will not be merged as requested by prosecutors. After the lower court rejected the motion, the Chișinău Court of Appeal also dismissed prosecutor Stela Barbă’s request to transfer the case regarding large-scale money laundering to Judge Renata Popescu-Balta, who is examining the abuse of power episode. The ruling was issued on May 8 and is final.

Topală was detained on January 13, 2021, by Interpol officers in Belgium and was extradited to Moldova on November 3, 2022. He is charged with abuse of office in the interest of an organized criminal group, linked to mismanagement during 2015–2019. Preliminary estimates by prosecutors indicate that his management caused damages of around 250 million lei.

To ensure effective investigations, prosecutors applied asset seizures worth 25 million lei on Topală’s and other defendants’ properties and launched parallel financial investigations.

In another case, Topală is accused of fraudulently leasing locomotives from the Transnistrian region, causing over 5 million lei in damages to the company.

Topală claims the accusations against him are unfounded and that, at the time of his departure from CFM, the company was operating normally and employees were receiving their salaries on time.

Over the years, the Center for Investigative Journalism has conducted several investigations uncovering fraudulent schemes at Moldovan Railways. You can find in the archive of Anticoruptie.md reports such as At a Crossroads of Interests—on how 34 families were prevented from privatizing their apartments in a former CFM dormitory, Moldovan Railways: Overpriced Acquisitions and Contracts with Firms Affiliated to the Democratic Party, and How CFM Lost Wagons Worth Millions, detailing fraudulent public procurement and contract practices, as well as millions in unpaid wages.