While controversial businessman Veaceslav Platon is hiding from Moldovan justice in London, the criminal trial in which the fugitive former MP is on trial for fraud committed in particularly large proportions and money laundering in particularly large proportions is taking place in Chisinau in his absence.

Since the beginning of the year, at least 40 court hearings have been scheduled in the Chisinau Court, of which more than 30 have been postponed, suspended or postponed. The main reasons given were the non-appearance of the prosecutor, the absence of lawyers, at the request of lawyers, the absence of participants, the defendant not having been legally summoned and bomb threats.

At the few hearings that did take place, however, only requests for recusal were considered.

On 1 December 2021, anti-corruption prosecutors indicted Veaceslav Platon in absentia, charging him with 3 counts, as follows: – Fraud committed in particularly large proportions; Causing particularly great material damage by deception or breach of trust; Making, possession, sale or use of false official documents, prints, stamps or seals.

In April 2022, controversial businessman Veaceslav Platon who, according to authorities, is in London was indicted in the Laundromat case. On 1 September this year, the Interpol National Bureau in Chisinau sent a request to the General Secretariat of the International Criminal Police Organization INTERPOL in Lyon, France, asking for a wanted persons notice for Platon, who fled Moldova after the 11 July parliamentary elections. Veaceslav Platon flew from Chisinau to Prague on Sunday evening, 19 July, but from there he flew to London. Later, in a Facebook post, Platon confirmed that he was in London.

In Platon’s case the authorities have requested his extradition and arrest. On 2 August 2021 prosecutors requested an arrest warrant with a wanted notice for detention for Veaceslav Platon after he left Moldova.

On 14 June 2021, controversial businessman Veaceslav Platon, sentenced in 2017 to 18 years in prison for allegedly obtaining, through illegal schemes, about 1 billion lei from the Banca de Economii din Moldova bank (BEM), then released and retried, was acquitted in the bank fraud case. The fraud scheme, known generically as the “Laundromat”, which is alleged to be the biggest money laundering operation in history, targets dozens of people in the political, justice and financial-banking sectors in Moldova.

Elena Platon, Veaceslav Platon’s sister, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Russia in the “Laundromat” case.

At the time, after Platon’s departure, the Prosecutor General’s Office, headed by suspended Prosecutor General Alexandr Stoianoglo, issued a statement on Platon’s departure from Moldova in which it said that “there are currently no pending cases requiring the application of any preventive measures against Platon and that the normal conduct of criminal proceedings pending at the Chisinau Court, Buiucani headquarters, is in Platon’s interest. Therefore, the Prosecutor’s Office does not see the logic for the named person to evade”.