With contributions by Dumitru Garcaliuc.
The oligarch’s many names
On July 22, Moldova’s richest man, Vladimir Plahotniuc, was arrested in Greece at the request of Interpol on charges of involvement in laundering $20 billion in corrupt Russian money through the so-called “Moldovan laundromat.”
Along with Moldova, Plahotniuc’s extradition was also demanded by Russia, which has officially filed criminal charges against him for money laundering. But there is ample reason to believe that Moscow’s accusations are in fact part of another scheme. “Something tells us that the Russian request is simply an attempt to provide Plahotniuc with protection and freedom,” said Viorel Cerneucanu, head of Moldova’s General Police Inspectorate.
Cerneucanu pointed out that Moscow had previously issued a warrant for the arrest of another fugitive Moldovan oligarch — Ilan Shor, who now lives in Russia and carries a Russian passport. And there are other precedents. Russia once fabricated a case against its own spy, Sergei Cherkasov, in an attempt to secure his extradition from Brazil (which ultimately failed), and also opened a case against Artyom Uss (the son of the then-governor of the Russian region of Krasnoyarsk), who was arrested in Italy. Uss was never extradited, but Russian agents managed to orchestrate his escape from house arrest.
There is serious cause to conclude that Cerneucanu is right. According to a police report, more than 20 fake IDs with different names were seized from Plahotniuc during his arrest. These included Ukrainian, Russian, and Bulgarian passports in the name of Mikhail Taushanov (born February 22, 1962).
As The Insider has discovered, Plahotniuc, the organizer of one of the largest scams in recent Russian history, has been traveling to Russia under this name on a regular basis. During these visits, not only has he encountered no problems with the law — he has been holding meetings at the highest levels of the Kremlin.
Negotiations with Kozak
In April 2025, the Moldovan investigative project Malenkaya Strana (“Little Country”) published excerpts from wiretaps of Vladislav Darvai, who from 2019 to September 2024 was Russia’s trade representative in Moldova (he is now head of the Presidential Administration’s information department for border cooperation). Talking to his mistress Natalia Pelin in 2024, Darvai admitted that he was involved in organizing a secret visit by Vladimir Plahotniuc to Moscow, where the oligarch was to meet with Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Dmitry Kozak.
From Darvai’s confused and disjointed speech, it was clear that Plahotniuc had decided to come to Moscow — despite the criminal case against him — for secret talks with Kozak. He was supposed to arrive on June 4 and stay at the National Hotel. So as not to be caught on camera, Plahotniuc was instructed to wear dark glasses and a cap with a low visor during his journey. He was taken from the airport in an unmarked car — one bearing license plates that would ensure it was not stopped by the police — and he was not allowed to leave his hotel room during the entire three-day visit.
According to the wiretaps, the billionaire also paid to have the hotel’s fitness center closed for his exclusive use. However, he was asked not to go to the massage parlor, where one of the employees, a “Moldovan woman from Bălți,” might recognize him (The Insider was able to confirm that such a masseuse did in fact work at the hotel at the time).