28-Year-Old Businessman Accused of Stealing $1 Billion From Moldova 133
An anonymous reader writes: You could be excused for not knowing much about Moldova — the small, Eastern European country has a population of around 3 million and occupies about 13,000 square miles of territory. Its GDP is just over $6 billion — which makes accusations that 28-year-old Ilan Shor stole close to a billion dollars from the country's banks quite interesting. A recent report (PDF) says Shor led a group that bought controlling stakes in three Moldovan banks and then passed transactions between them to increase their liquidity. The banks then issued massive loans to companies owned or related to Shor. $767 million disappeared from the banks, and the country's central bank thinks that total will rise to $1 billion. It was forced to bail out the banks to keep the economy from crashing. Widespread corruption led to many records of Shor's actions being "lost" or outright deleted. He's now charged and placed under house arrest while the investigation continues.
Guess it won't be... (Score:2)
that great a place for software development facilities anymore.
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why not? a crappy economy means things should be dirt cheap, if you pay with real money [which would be anything but Modollars].
Never pull a job without proper status (Score:3)
You can't just do this without insider help. And by insiders, I mean government officials.
Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Never pull a job without proper status (Score:5, Funny)
You can't just do this without insider help. And by insiders, I mean government officials.
Wouldn't happen here. In Soviet America; Bank robs you!
Re:Never pull a job without proper status (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't just do this without insider help. And by insiders, I mean government officials.
Wouldn't happen here. In Soviet America; Bank robs you!
Why are you guys complaining? This is just the free market at work, imaginative businessmen bypassing the onerous tyranny of regulators.
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Can't decide whether to mod your post Funny or Insightful. Guess I'll owe you one.
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Can't decide whether to mod your post Funny or Insightful. Guess I'll owe you one.
It was intended to be: +1 Sarcastic
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That would be why, yes.
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imaginative businessmen bypassing the onerous tyranny of regulators.
If by "tyranny of regulators", you mean the fed. providing the Bernake Put and allowing the businessmen to engage in any sort of risky businesses they want, and then steal trillions from taxpayers to bail them out when business goes bad, then sure.
Re:Never pull a job without proper status (Score:5, Insightful)
TARP had an 8.2% ROI in 6 years, not too shabby.
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Hence why many banks now offer a negative interest.
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Ok 1% a year may well be shabby....but the US (and the world) still has an economy so there's that.
Yall can argue TARP wasn't executed in the best way (agreed) and might not have fixed the underlying problem (agreed) but none the less, it happened at a time when everyone agreed we were in a worst case scenario and now we're not. If you add that in, its more like 10000% ROI.
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Sorry, everyone didn't agree. There is no way to measure something that didn't happen. Hanging a percent on it does nothing but show that you are math-illiterate.
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The *program* lasted six years, but the majority of the money was paid back 2-3 years in. It kept ahead of inflation and bond rates, so a net win for taxpayers.
Not shabby at all, as bailouts go. Brilliant compared to Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac or the disaster that was the '80s S&L crisis.
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At least people went to jail for the S&L crisis. Still totally stupid to have deregulated.
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The Market has done better than 8% per year the past 5 years, it's shabby. TARP recipients received the equivalent of Federal Disaster Funds at low interest.
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Only because our President threatened to go back and add conditions regarding bonuses and other regulatory measures in exchange for letting the banks hold on to the TARP money. Shortly after that all these troubled companies had plenty of cash to pay back the gov't with.
No - most did not want to accept tarp money but the Obama administration made them so they then tried to get rid of those loans as quickly as possible
http://www.businessinsider.com... [businessinsider.com]
http://cnsnews.com/news/articl... [cnsnews.com]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB... [wsj.com]
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So...kinda like here in the U.S.
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The guy they are pinning this on isn't really very bright. He's just the patsy for the government officials that are actually responsible. A man named Vladimir Plahotniuc and his associates are the ones actually responsible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Plahotniuc
Two things I know about Moldova (Score:3)
Re:Two things I know about Moldova (Score:5, Funny)
The key to happiness is managing your expectations.
I know the company from the movie RED 2 (Score:2)
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"Moldova SUCKS!!!!"
Re:I know the company from the movie RED 2 (Score:5, Informative)
Actually... compared to other Eastern European countries which all had this happen to them repeatedly, Moldova ROCKS! You know why? They caught him, while he was still in the country and they have a good chance at recovering some of those funds. That is a huge victory compared to the usual standard in such cases in Eastern Europe. GO MOLDOVA!
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I also am quite fond of Moldova. Lots of sights to see, and wine to drink.
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Sorry, I was just making reference to my favorite quote from the movie Red by the actor John Malkovich that the parent comment reference.
Moldova (Score:2, Informative)
Most Europeans that don't live in countries near Moldova know it for its wine. I've actually been there (though only for about 3 days) and it is quite a poor country too by European standards. I imagine this is going to hit the Moldovan people pretty hard.
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Moldavia was the medieval lands. Moldova is the current political nation. Same place though.
So then (Score:1)
He did the same thing bankers do in the rest of the world, only he didn't pay off the right people? Lesson learned.
Re:So then (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So then (Score:5, Informative)
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Yep, the socialists are totally into the idea of taking money from a bunch of poor people and giving it to one rich guy. You have their philosophy all figured out.
That may not be the sheep's philosophy but that's how it tends to turn out.
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"Rich guy with access to lots of resources uses those resources to transfer more wealth to himself," is not exactly a major headline in any country. This one was just notable because it was really blatantly illegal.
Amateurs (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as Eastern European country bank heists go, this guy is an amateur. The way professionals [google.com] do it is by first controlling the government and the media. Then you steal the money (say some 7-8 billion) by funneling them through a chain of hollow companies to offshore accounts. Finally you set one of your partners with whom you have unsettled depth as the fall guy, while you yourself use your political connection to become the head of the local equivalent of the FBI:
Bulgaria's CorpBank: A Tangled Web Of Fraud [forbes.com]
Re:Amateurs (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as Eastern European country bank heists go, this guy is an amateur. The way professionals [google.com] do it is by first controlling the government and the media. Then you steal the money (say some 7-8 billion) by funneling them through a chain of hollow companies to offshore accounts. Finally you set one of your partners with whom you have unsettled depth as the fall guy, while you yourself use your political connection to become the head of the local equivalent of the FBI:
Bulgaria's CorpBank: A Tangled Web Of Fraud [forbes.com]
Or just become President like Putin did
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No day is complete without paying respect to the great leaders of this world.
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But that requires removing your shirt and wrestling bears!?! I'd still rather just e-transfer everything quietly.
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I knew it wasn't "Delores" (Score:5, Funny)
I had remembered that there was a small, Eastern European country that has a population of around 3 million and occupies about 13,000 square miles of territory. But I couldn't remember its name up until now - only that it rhymed with a part of the female anatomy.
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Re: I knew it wasn't "Delores" (Score:2, Funny)
Mulva
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I will do a self deprecating woosh over my head as I still can't work out what term of the female anatomy either Seinfeld or whatever is referring to.
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See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org] . Also, my apologies for spelling "Dolores" wrong.
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Thanks. Must be the American accent.....
Re:Bailout (Score:4, Interesting)
It is immaterial to the perpetrator of the fleecing here whether the government bails out the banks or not. The perpetrator has already taken the money via having it loaned, so whether the bank goes bankrupt or not doesn't matter to them, but it does matter to the government.
Banks are in an interesting position since they have control over assets that can far exceed the bank's actual value. Of course, legally the bank cannot just take these assets since they are storing deposits on behalf of customers, but they can lend out this money (minus a % they have to keep in hand at all times per regulation).
So a scheme could work like so:
- Buy a controlling interest in a bank, one where the purchase cost is a small fraction of the deposits the bank manages.
- Make transactions (selling debt, taking loans, etc) to allow the bank to have as much cash on hand as possible.
- Lend out all of this cash to companies you control, with no collateral on the loans.
- Have those companies pay the money to other companies you control for services etc.
- The first set of companies now all default on their loans, and there is no collateral to pursue.
- Bank goes bankrupt (or gets bailed out), doesn't matter to you either way.
- Roll around in your money, which is now off-shore so it can't be seized.
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In either case, boiling the perpetrators in oil is probably a good next step. Not doing that is where we ten
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I thought it was the Uzbeks that boiled them, not the Moldavians.
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It happened in Western Europe in older times, precisely for people that messed with money. You don't mess with coins with a king's face on it else said king will get very pissed at you.
You would have to be someone pretty important to get boiled in oil, though. Oil is very expensive and it is a big waste to use it for torture or as a weapon.
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Oil is very expensive and it is a big waste to use it for torture or as a weapon.
Vegetable oils are cheap, plentiful, and appear to work quite well on chicken legs and potato wedges.
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I mean in pre-modern times, where I believe it to be very valuable.
Even today it is not that cheap to the average African, as it has to be priced at least as much as diesel fuel.
While the idea of throwing boiling oil on people who assault your castle is popular, they rather used pitch http://theurbanabo.com/urban_h... [theurbanabo.com]
If I were an evil overlord I would certainly consider throwing political enemies in a frying pan, watching while having dinner.
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Most of the woodcuts depicting the act showed a large cauldron with the boilee inside, surrounded by flames. Presumably the boilers used water.
Goldman Sachs (Score:3, Insightful)
Manipulation? (Score:2)
When your GDP is lower than some individual's incomes, some interesting but bad things can happen.
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well if its not illegal it should be, and they should simply execute him,
rich assholes fucking with the lively hood of an entire country should not be tollerated by society they should be drawn and quartered publicly as an example.
Re:Manipulation? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why did he stay? (Score:2)
If you want to get away with a crime - go BIG (Score:4, Insightful)
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You steal $1000 dollars and the police look for you.
You steal $100,000 and the FBI looks for you.
You steal $10,000,000 and the banks hire you.
You steal $1,000,000,000 and the lawyers get you off on a technicality.
Ask Bernie Madoff how that's working out.
Jon Corzine hires new assistant (Score:3)
illogical (Score:1)
Maybe it's my American bias, but it's not possible for a bank to steal from the government. Because governments are property of the bank.
The problem here is the other banks were not able to transfer the entire country's GDP to their individual executives.
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I forget, so please refresh my memory, are liberals for government control of the banks or are they for bank control of the government?
(I'm pretty sure I'm against either)
Banking Criminals (Score:5, Insightful)
Freaking Moldova can put a banker in jail, why can't we?
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Freaking Moldova can put a banker in jail, why can't we?
The problem is we insist on calling these people "bankers". They're no more bankers than I am. They're criminals who have infiltrated the banking system.
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They're criminals who have infiltrated the banking system.
That is only after they are caught. In the US and most of Europe and Asia those criminals are still bankers.
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Did you say BILLION? (Score:2)
"Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Shor's other Algorithm (Score:1)
"Procedure for stealing $1B from a small country"
This is probably not the Shor's Algorithm you are looking for.
--
Captcha: Plunders
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Bank of Elbonie (Score:3, Insightful)
If He Thinks Being in Jail is Bad... (Score:2)
...wait until Victor Von Doom finds out what he did.
can be done legally (Score:2)
that's what the dynastic families that control the Western banking cartel and Wall Street do
Amateur (Score:1)
$16 billion USD was flown into Iraq by the USM after the start of the 2003 war ... and ... it's gone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nVk25ZvTkU
Transnistrina (Score:2)
Hmm. This guy just grabbed 1/6 of Moldova. Transnistrina, a rebellious province of Moldova that Moldova technically owns but can't govern, is about 1/6 of the country. So rather than prosecuting him, Moldova could just give him Transnistrina in exchange for the $1 billion and wish him good luck with that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]
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There's one problem with Ukraine "fixing" Transnistria: The region is full of ethnic Russians who loved the old Soviet Union, and are being supported by Russia to be a pain in the ass. In short, it's a prototype of Ukraine's Donetsk and Crimea problems. And that's more problems than Ukraine can handle right now.
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You could not be more right by comparing Transnistria to Donbass.
The Russian strate
legal fees (Score:1)
At least he won't have trouble with paying for all of the legal fees he's about to incur :)
1 billion in Moldova? (Score:1)
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Hey, those lost e-mails are not like a member of the military [wikipedia.org] country under an arms embargo [wikipedia.org] where americans had been held hostage for over 400 days [wikipedia.org] to fund a bunch of drug dealing terrorists [wikipedia.org] with the approval of rogue members of the executive branch [wikipedia.org]against the direct order of congress signed into law by the very person who later broke it [wikipedia.org]...which is technically high treason.
Losing e-mails is penny ante stuff compared to the shit that goes down in Eastern Europe, Russia and the BRIC in general. We put peop
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Things must be pretty pathetic, if you must bring up Iran-Contras affair to defend a 21st-century Democratic politician. But, yes, those lost e-mails really are not like that. Whatever you might think of Lt-Colonel Norton and that entire things, that business was not for personal gain [breitbart.com].
Losing would've been. But it was deliberate destruction of records. And lying to Congress [ijreview.com].
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But, yes, those lost e-mails really are not like that.
Dude, people lose/delete e-mail by accident ALL THE TIME, no conspiracy or ulterior motives involved. It's one of those things that can happen to anyone.
Whatever you might think of Lt-Colonel Norton
His NAME is North.
that business was not for personal gain.
Not directly, but doing what your bosses want can be percieved as personal gain. And destroying evidence, which he did, was most certainly for personal gain. And he has certainly turned his criminal and treasonous acts into a career as a right-wing pundit...for personal gain.
And you may not realize this but Breitbart is not an unbiased
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Are you disputing a single fact stated on the page I linked to? No, you do not. Your attempt at rebuttal is therefor null and void and without any merit whatsoever.
Should I ever suddenly develop a need for your opinion on what I should be doing, I'll pump it out of your asshole, asshole. With a broomstick. But nice to see an Illiberal's real attitude tow
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The fact that you turn vicious as soon as someone disputes what you say speaks volumes.
Do us both a favour and don't ever reply to me again, either.
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And we are disappointed.
They had you thinking it was all blackjack and hookers,eh? You should've moved to Vegas and become a pit boss.
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I think that would be just to hillary your hard drive, not rehillary it. It may take on a life like Robert Bork (i.e. to be borked).
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So now wiping a hard drive is a Hillary? I'm not up to date on this, when did they send out the memo?
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So now wiping a hard drive is a Hillary? I'm not up to date on this, when did they send out the memo?
I'm sorry, that information has been Hillaried.