Three people have been detained for 72 hours by the National Anti-Corruption Centre (CNA) following raids carried out on Friday morning, September 2, in the criminal case on the illegal financing of the “Sor” political party. The raids included a raid on a president of a district territorial organisation of the party.

The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA) announces that the persons detained are charged with complicity in the falsification of reports on the party’s financial management and accepting party financing from an “organised criminal group”.

“Also today, the judge has received a request to extend the term of the preventive measure “preventive arrest” against the defendant Marina Tauber for another 30 days, the date of the hearing of the request to be set by the court. On 1 September 2022, the order of admission as a suspect of PP “Shor” was brought to the attention of his legal representative, who was appointed by the investigating judge. The legal person was also charged with committing the offences referred to in Article 1812 para. (1) and para. (5) of the Criminal Code The results of the criminal prosecution actions on the case, the prosecutors will inform later, to the extent that the presentation of data from the file will not jeopardize the proper conduct of criminal investigations. In this context, we would like to assure that the criminal investigations on this case are carried out within the limits of the criminal procedural legislation, with respect for all the rights and freedoms of the persons being prosecuted, ensuring the principle of presumption of innocence, confidentiality of criminal proceedings, respect for privacy and personal data,” the representatives of the PA state.

On Friday morning, 2 September, prosecutors from the PA conducted searches in the case of illegal financing of the “ȘOR” political party.

In July 2022, anti-corruption prosecutors together with officers of the National Anti-Corruption Centre (CNA) also conducted several searches in the criminal case on illegal financing of the “ȘOR” Political Party. At the time, the CNA announced that in the first half of this year, the “ȘOR” political party had made payments amounting to €600,000, while reported expenditure was just over 228,000 lei.

According to the evidence on file, it was found that the party had knowingly accepted money of dubious origin from a “criminal group”, which was used for party purposes, such as fees for artists, salaries for members and the organisation of protests. According to the CNA, the money of the “criminal group” arrived in Moldova in the form of transfers and conversions, including in cryptocurrency, and various financing channels such as Dubai, Vienna and Monaco were used to disguise the origin of the funds.

Also in July, the acting Prosecutor General, Dumitru Robu, submitted to Parliament two requests for waiver of immunity for MP Marina Tauber, who is the subject of two criminal cases brought on the grounds of “knowingly accepting the financing of the “ȘOR” political party from an organised criminal group”. Tauber was stripped of her parliamentary immunity on Thursday 21 July.

Tauber described the lifting of parliamentary immunity as a “political decision that has already been taken”. The party’s vice-president declared herself innocent and said she was not afraid of anything, “neither of detention nor of searches”.

On 23 July, Marina Tauber was remanded in custody for 30 days in the 13th prison in the capital. On 16 August, magistrates extended the arrest warrant for Marina Tauber for a further 20 days in prison no. 13.