Vladimir Plahotniuc
The criminal talent of the “gray cardinal” of Moldovan politics extended to other countries as well. The Russian edition of Kommersant publishes details of the entrepreneur’s biography.
Vladimir Plahotniuc was born on January 1, 1966 in the village of Pitushka, Calarasi district, Moldavian SSR. In 1991, he graduated from the Faculty of Food Industry Technology of the Technical University of Moldova with a degree in engineering, and in 2002, he received a master’s degree in business administration from the same university. In 2006, he graduated from the Faculty of Law of Moldova State University, specializing as a lawyer.
Since 1991, he worked at the Center for Prevention and Rehabilitation of Juvenile Victims of Violence “Minor”. Then he worked as an economist in companies with foreign capital Euro Est Hundel Ltd Moldova, Voyage Ltd Moldova. In 1995 he founded the Angels financial group, which he headed until 2001.
In 2001, he was appointed commercial director of the company for import and sale of oil products Petrom Moldova JSC. Later, he became general director of the company and held this position until 2010.
Since 2005, he simultaneously worked as deputy chairman of the board of the first joint-stock commercial bank Victoriabank. In 2006-2011 – Chairman of the Board of Victoriabank.
In thefall of 2010, he joined the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM) and was elected as a member of Parliament. In December of the same year, he took the post of deputy chairman of the party, as well as the first vice-speaker of the Moldovan Parliament. He was in charge of international cooperation. On June 16, 2012, he was elected First Deputy Chairman of the PDM.
In 2013, MPs passed a vote of no confidence in Vladimir Plahotniuc, accusing him of “illegal activities that damage the image of the Parliament and the Republic”. In October 2013, he resigned his parliamentary powers, but in November 2014 he was re-elected to the Moldovan parliament. In July 2015, after the creation of a new parliamentary majority, he gave up his parliamentary mandate.
On January 11, 2016, the PDM formed a new majority coalition in Parliament and nominated Vladimir Plahotniuc as Prime Minister. On the same day, President Nicolae Timofti rejected his candidacy as “not meeting the necessary criteria”. In response, the coalition re-nominated Mr. Plahotniuc as a candidate for prime minister. On January 14, 2016, the Moldovan President rejected his candidacy again.
In December 2016, Vladimir Plahotniuc was unanimously elected party chairman at the PDM congress. In February 2019, at the parliamentary elections, he was elected as a PDM deputy from a single-mandate constituency. In June of the same year, he resigned as PDM chairman, and in July he announced his resignation from the party.
After the political crisis in June 2019, Vladimir Plahotniuc left Moldova for the United States and later Turkey. According to Moldovan media reports, he became a Turkish citizen under the citizenship in exchange for investment program, and Turkish law prohibits the extradition of citizens to foreign countries. On October 29, 2019, Moldova’s National Anti-Corruption Center put the businessman on an international and interstate wanted list. The oligarch’s property worth about $3 million was seized.
The businessman was the founder of the Association of Business People of Moldova, chairman and founder of the Edelweiss charitable foundation, which supports various social and cultural projects in the republic. According to media reports, he was the owner of two Moldovan hotels, an insurance company, a nightclub, Prime and 2 Plus TV channels, as well as Prime FM radio station. The media repeatedly published journalistic investigations on the schemes used by Mr. Plahotniuc to register his property in offshore zones.
Mr. Plahotniuc was awarded the Moldovan Order of the Republic (2014). Married, two sons.
Vladimir Plahotniuc is a defendant in several criminal cases in Russia. In 2017, he was arrested in absentia by the Basmanny Court of Moscow at the request of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Russian Federal Investigative Committee. The agency considers him involved in the organization of a failed assassination attempt on Moldovan and Russian businessman Renato Usatii.
On February 22, 2019, the Russian Interior Ministry accused Vladimir Plahotniuc and businessman Veaceslav Platon of organizing the so-called Moldovan scheme, through which more than 500 billion rubles were withdrawn from Russia. The investigation believes that in 2013-2014, the members of the international criminal community made illegal currency transactions and withdrew the funds from Russian banks through the Moldovan bank BC Moldindconbank S.A.. Vladimir Plakhotniuc was put on an international wanted list and on August 5, 2019 was arrested in absentia by the Tver Court of Moscow as part of this criminal case.
On June 26, 2019, the Russian Interior Ministry charged Vladimir Plakhotnyuk in absentia with organizing a criminal association and 28 episodes of drug smuggling. On 14 November 2019, Moscow’s Tverskoy court arrested Plakhotnyuk in absentia in the case of drug smuggling by an organized group of persons.
On July 5, 2022, a court in Chisinau issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Plahotniuc in the case of embezzlement in the state-owned company Metalferos.
On April 22, 2026, the Chisinau Buiucani Sector Court sentenced Plahotniuc to 19 years in prison. He was found guilty of bank fraud, organizing a criminal group and money laundering. The state prosecution had requested a 25-year sentence.
