A Moldovan court on Wednesday sentenced oligarch and former political leader Vladimir Plahotniuc to 19 years in prison for his role in a massive bank fraud scheme that siphoned funds from three lenders in 2014.

The court in Chisinau convicted Plahotniuc, one of the nation’s richest men, on charges including fraud, organizing a criminal group, and money laundering, RFE/RL reported. The banking scandal, described at the time as the “theft of a century,” involved the disappearance of around $1 billion, or roughly 12 percent of Moldova’s economic output.

The stolen sum was equivalent to about one-eighth of Moldova’s annual GDP at the time and helped plunge the country into turmoil, the Associated Press said. 

For his role in the scheme, Plahotniuc received $39 million and €3.5 million through companies controlled by fellow oligarch Ilan Shor, the AP said. Prosecutors had sought the maximum 25-year sentence for Plahotniuc and will seek $60 million in damages. 

In a final statement to the court on March 25, Plahotniuc said there was no evidence of an organized criminal group and argued that Shor did not need his help to take control of Banca Sociala and Unibank, two institutions tied to the case, according to RFE/RL. 

Plahotniuc fled to the United States from Moldova in June 2019 but federal officials revoked his U.S. visa in 2020, said RFE/RL, which later reported that he had remained a resident of Miami even after the visa revocation. 

Pressure on Plahotniuc widened in 2022, when the U.S. Treasury Department imposed financial sanctions on him and Ilan Shor, accusing them of corrupting Moldova’s political and economic system and serving Russia’s broader influence efforts. The European Union and Britain also sanctioned Plahotniuc, saying he played a role in destabilizing Moldovan politics, the news agency said. 

In 2025, he was extradited to Chisinau from Greece.

Read more at the Associated Press

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