October 29 2016
Europe’s poorest country Moldova — politically torn between former Soviet master Russia and the West — has seen its economy ravaged by rampant corruption and a string of money laundering and theft scandals. As the country prepares for presidential elections on Sunday, observers from the Council of Europe recently issued an unflattering pre-vote report.
“One of the main reasons for the long-standing political crisis in Moldova is the lack of confidence in the state institutions resulting from multiple corruption scandals,” they said in a statement late September. Just last month 15 judges were detained on suspicion of participating in “a criminal scheme that allowed the laundering of $20 billion from Russia bypassing the Moldovan banking system,” according to the Moldovan Anti-Corruption Center (CNA).