Several people, including Democratic Party members, had previously received and held a special phone to talk exclusively with the former leader of the Democratic Party, Vladimir Plahotniuc. The statements were made by the honorary President of the Democratic Party, Dumitru Diacov, during the Politica TV Show, on TV8.

According to Dumitru Diacov, the honorary President of the Democratic Party, several people from Vladimir Plahotniuc’s entourage, former leader of the Democratic Party, received an iPhone 6 or 7 and used these phones to discuss with Plahotniuc.

Diacov claims that there is a possibility that all the calls made from those phones, offered by Plahotniuc, may have been recorded, and stored on a certain server.

“I had a phone, but I don’t know exactly what application it contained. Other deputies like me had such a phone. Indeed, it was a special telephone, through which we communicated with Plahotniuc. I understood that this phone was exclusively for internal calls. It was a regular phone from which I communicated on the network with party representatives. 

I don’t know who received such a phone from Plahotniuc, but many of our people had such a phone. We, somehow, suspected that these calls were recorded. It was a simple phone, an iPhone 6 or 7. Plahotniuc called us on the number on that phone. 

As far as I remember, the phone contained ordinary numbers. For example, I knew 20 or 30 numbers. They were the numbers of my colleagues. There was the number of Plahotniuc, of Serghei Iarolov, a close person to Plahotniuc. Through this phone, we talked to Plahotniuc, in case he answered the phone. We need to ask Plahotniuc why he used this mechanism and these phones.

Maybe in this way, Plahotniuc controlled the conversations or knew everything about what the Democratic Party members were discussing. Probably, these conversations are kept somewhere and maybe they could be made public. 

I don’t know anything about this IT company created by the head of the IT department of the Democratic Party, Mihail Cocos, he was an exclusive employee of Plahotniuc. It had nothing to do with the Democratic Party.

If it turns out that all the conversations have been recorded and are kept somewhere, for certain things, that will already become interesting. I used these phones for two, three years. If any compromising talks were recorded and there are these compromising talks, then Plahotniuc could use them to blackmail the deputies, to move from one party to another,” said Diacov.

Following the searches carried out on July 2, at the former headquarters of the Democratic Party, downtown Chișinău, Mihail Cocoș, the head of the IT department of the Democratic Party, was detained. 

According to the prosecutors, he is suspected of favoring and participating in the activity of a criminal organization, led by Plahotniuc.

Plahotniuc left Moldova in June 2019, after the ACUM Bloc and the Socialist Party coalition ousted the government led by the Democratic Party. Following Plahotniuc’s departure from the country, several criminal cases were opened against him. 

In March 2020, the U.S. Embassy in Chișinău confirmed that Plahotniuc is on U.S. territory.