French judges ordered the confiscation of a luxury villa in an elite area of ​​France belonging to oligarch Volodymyr Plahotniuc, who was internationally wanted after fleeing the Republic of Moldova, Radio Chisinau reports.

At the request of the Prosecutor’s Office for the Fight against Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS), the Magistrate’s Court of Thonon-les-Bains, France, ordered the seizure of a villa in the French town of Siez – one of the most elite areas of France. , on the border with Switzerland.

According to French authorities, the villa would be worth more than 4.2 million euros, and the sequestration would guarantee the possibility of an additional penalty of confiscation of assets in a criminal case being investigated by the Moldovan prosecutor’s office.

Referring to the authorities of Cyprus, the French judge also indicates that Volodymyr Plahotniuk created a criminal network at the national and international levels in 2009-2019, and with the participation of Ilan Shor, they registered Cypriot and Panamanian companies in England and opened bank accounts. to deposit money stolen from Moldovan banks, Radio Chisinau writes.

The Chisinau press reminds that in an investigation carried out in 2018, Rise Moldova wrote about four properties owned by Volodymyr Plahotniuc, the then leader of the Democratic Party, located on the axis Geneva – Siez – Les Ouches – Bucharest, worth more than 30 million euros.

Vlad Plahotniuc would have left the Republic of Moldova in June 2019, immediately after the resignation of the government of Pavlo Filip, after the party he leads, the PDM, ceded the government to a coalition formed by the ACUM bloc and PSRM, which collapsed in November. 2019 year.

On June 17, Vlad Plahotniuk wrote on Facebook that the decision to leave the government was made in order not to deepen the political crisis in Chisinau, but this does not mean that he will leave politics, he will only take a break and coordinate his team outside the country.

Plahotniuk is under international investigation after the prosecutor’s office indicted him on three counts: “creating and leading a criminal organization,” “fraud” and “money laundering” in particularly large amounts.