KYIV (Reuters) -Moldovan business magnate Vladimir Plahotniuc, detained in Greece on a warrant linked to a $1 billion fraud case, landed in Moldova’s capital Chisinau after being extradited, local media said on Thursday.
NewsMaker.md outlet, broadcasting live from the airport, showed how people in dark uniforms led a man in a white shirt and dark cap, whose hands were tied behind his back, out of the plane and put him in a car.
Plahotniuc’s arrival comes days before a high-stakes parliamentary election in Moldova, where the ruling pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) will likely struggle to keep its majority amid voter satisfaction with economic pain and slow progress on fighting corruption.
Plahotniuc, a former lawmaker and considered one of Moldova’s richest men, is one of the chief suspects in Moldova’s so-called “theft of the century”, the disappearance in 2013 of $1 billion from the Moldovan banking system: the equivalent at the time of 12% of the ex-Soviet state’s GDP.
Plahotniuc has denied wrongdoing.
Plahotniuc was arrested on July 21 at the Athens airport after boarding a plane to Dubai. Greek police acted on an Interpol notice issued in February which states that he held 16 passports, including from Romania, Mexico and Russia.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by)
