CHISINAU (Reuters) – Moldovan President Maia Sandu has said that Sunday’s presidential election and referendum on charting a course towards European Union membership were marred by “unprecedented” outside interference.
Moldovan officials say that Ilan Shor, a 37-year-old fugitive oligarch from the poor southeast European nation, has played a leading role in Russian-backed interference aimed at derailing Moldova’s EU course.
Here are key facts on Shor:
EARLY LIFE
Shor was born in Tel Aviv, Israel on 6 March 1987, but his family returned to Moldova in the 1990s. His father, Miron Shor, was a businessman with interests in duty-free and travel retail, among others. When his father died in 2005, then 18-year-old Shor took over the family business ‘ShorHolding’ and expanded its reach, buying TV stations, an insurance company, and the Moldovan soccer team, FC Milsami Orhei.
THEFT OF THE CENTURY
In June 2017 Shor was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison for his involvement in the theft of one billion dollars from Moldova’s banking system in 2014, the largest bank fraud in the country’s history.
Shor was president of Banca de Economii, one of three banks involved in the so-called theft of the century. He was also head of Dufremol, Moldova’s largest seller of duty-free goods.
While under house arrest pending an appeal, he fled in 2019 to Israel. According to Moldovan media, he now lives in Russia and obtained Russian citizenship this year.
In 2023, the appeal court doubled his jail sentence to 15 years in absentia on graft charges and froze all his assets.
POLITICIAN
In 2015 Shor was elected mayor of the small Moldovan town of Orheie, about 40 km (25 miles) from the capital Chisinau, a post he held until April 2019.
Shor’s involvement in the banking fraud did not bother his voters and according to opinion polls he was regularly ranked as Moldova’s third or fourth most popular politician. Despite living in exile, Short was elected to parliament in 2019 and re-elected in 2021, although he did not attend sessions and lost his parliamentary mandate in 2023.
Last year, his party was banned and he is also under Western sanctions, accused of “malign influence campaigns” for Russia.
ACCUSATIONS OF VOTE MEDDLING
The Security and Intelligence Service of Moldova (SIS) says Shor has been instrumental in funneling one billion Moldovan lei ($56.4 million) into the country since mid-2022 through political parties affiliated with him to sway people’s votes.
In November 2023, the Moldovan government barred Shor’s Chance party from participating in local elections on national security grounds. The Moldovan Commission for Emergency Situations said Chance used undeclared foreign money to bribe candidates and voters, and to manipulate public opinion.
The Moldovan authorities also banned media companies and various Telegram channels linked to Shor. But his message – anti-EU and sympathetic to Moscow – still seeps through.
In October, Moldovan police and anti-corruption prosecutors accused Shor and his affiliates of funneling more than $15 million in Russian funds into the accounts of more than an estimated 130,000 Moldovan citizens, a staggering amount for Moldova. Shor has denied any wrongdoing.
($1 = 17.7422 Moldovan lei)
(Reporting by Alexander Tanas in Chisinau and Olena Harmash in Kyiv; Editing by Gareth Jones)
