A senior inspector at the National Anti-Corruption Center, a customs inspector, an integrity inspector at the Moldovan Football Federation, and finally, a suspect in money laundering for an organized criminal group.
This is the weird trajectory of a former law enforcement officer, an affiliate of Moldovan fugitive businessman Ilan Shor. His name is Victor Gutuleac, 40, one of Shor’s lieutenants in Moscow.
Colaj: Roman Filippov/RISE Moldova
MONEY FOR „MOLDOVAN VILLAGE”
In August 2023, three months ahead of the mayoral elections, the fugitive businessman announced the launch of the „Moldovan Village” project.
„It’s an investment of 17 billion lei through ‘My Dream’ foundation, which I’ve founded. We are allocating 20 million lei for every community over the next three years. This year, every municipality will receive five million lei for road reconstruction,” Mr. Shor said in a video posted on his Facebook page, urging mayors to file formal funding requests.
He didn’t say a word, however, where the money comes from or how it would land in municipalities’ accounts. Moreover, the organizations used by Shor to sponsor local public administrations – My Dream Foundation for Democracy Development – has not been ever registered with the Ministry of Justice.
A month later, the first sponsorship agreements were signed. However, not with Shor’s foundation, but with an individual named Igal (Igor) Shved, a 61-year-old Israeli national. As revealed later, it turned out that Shved was also a Russian citizen.
The Israeli man was not a stranger to charity in Moldova. Mr. Shved’s name appeared in public view in June 2023, when the Orhei City Hall published two announcements about public consultations „Regarding the approval of the conditions of the Sponsorship Contract.” In one of these acts, the sponsor [Shved] was committing himself to cover the expenses for repairs at a local kindergarten; in the other, he promised to pay a five-million-lei allowance for newborn children in Orhei.
THE SPONSOR AND THE LOAN
Two days before the local elections on 5 November 2023, the Information and Security Service (SIS) said in a public report that the source of Shved’s money was actually the Russian Federation.
In June 2023, as much as 95 million Russian rubles – equivalent to about 1 million euros – landed in Igal Shved’s Eurasia Bank account in Kazakhstan. The money was a loan from a Moldovan born in Moscow who holds dual Moldova/Russia citizenship. His name is Victor Gutuleac. Subsequently, Mr. Shved transfers this money to his account in Moldova, advertising his intention to sponsor road paving, water supply, and street illumination projects in both rural and urban communities as a form of support for Shor’s election campaign.
The money route through which Shor indirectly bought votes. Graphics: Roman Filippov
When the Moldovan authorities asked the Israeli to demonstrate the origin of that money, Mr. Shved, according to the SIS, submitted a revenue statement issued by the Russian tax service Federation. It claimed that he withdrew more than 54 million US dollars upon closing a business in the United Kingdom in 2018. The statement was a fake, an official investigation found.
With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and heavy sanctions imposed on Russian banks, Kazakhstan is being used by hundreds of thousands of Russians citizens whose banks have been disconnected from the SWIFT system that ensures fast cross-border payments.
THE COURIER
Just a recap – the money Mr. Shved transferred to Moldova with the promise to sponsor community projects under the guise of electoral “charity” was a loan from Victor Gutuleac and originated from Russia.
Gutuleac was born in Moscow during Soviet times, when his father – also named Victor Gutuleac – was an employee at the Police Academy of the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs. After the Soviet Union collapsed, the family moved to Moldova and Gutuleac Sr. worked for many years in the Moldovan police force before joining the Moldovan Police Academy “Stefan cel Mare” in Chisinau as a lecturer, rising later to the post of commanding rector of this institution.
The son followed in his father’s footsteps. In 2006, at the age of 22, Victor Gutuleac Jr. joined the Center for Combating Economic Crimes and Corruption (today the National Anti-Corruption Center), where he worked for two years as an inspector, and then as a senior inspector at the General Directorate for Combating Economic Crimes. In 2008, he quitted the police force but returned a year later as a senior criminal investigation officer at the General Directorate of Criminal Investigation.
Not for long, though. In 2012, he got hired at the Customs Service, which at that time was led by Tudor Balitchi, a man currently connected to Ilan Shor, and worked as a customs official for less than five months. He had not been officially employed in Moldova until May 2020 – the time he appeared as an integrity inspector at the Moldovan Football Federation (FMF). Less than a year later, he quitted the Federation.
RISE Moldova asked Eugen Zubic, head of the FMF Integrity Department, what is the story behind Gutuleac’s employment at his department. Mr. Zubic, however, cut it short: „I am not authorized, due to my position, to provide this information,” and advised the RISE report to file an official request for information with the FMF leadership. Furthermore, he claimed he did not know Gutuleac before he was employed at the FMF, and after his departure, they did not keep in touch. Mr. Zubic claimed to be unaware about Gutuleac’s existence before the latter got the job at the Federation and after his departure the two had never been in touch.
Gutuleac’s re-employment in Moldova coincides with his inclusion on a blacklist of the Russian Central Bank, in March 2020, which cited „signs indicating possible laundering of money obtained from criminal activities.”
The blacklist in question contains the names of individuals, entrepreneurs, and companies that are declined accounts or services by Russian banks based on the Federal Law 115-FZ that defines money laundering.
The law describes suspicious transactions that need verification by banks. It obliges the banks to analyze transactions exceeding 600,000 rubles, illegal cash transfers, or withdrawal of money from Russian accounts into foreign accounts. Those on the blacklist may face limitations or restrictions when interacting with banks. It is a tool used by the Russian Central Bank to alert commercial banks about transactions, the official narrative goes on.
Victor Gutuleac left Moldova in 2022 and has been in the Russian Federation ever since. On the eve of his departure, he took over an organization in Moscow. It is called the Gori Svet (Russian for „Burn Light”), a charity for people with disabilities founded by four Russian citizens. Its financial reports show insignificant turnover and the latest available public report dates back to 2017.
A year ago, Gutuleac founded in Moscow an individual enterprise that bears his name. The company operates as a real estate agency „on a commission or contract basis”.
Victor Guțuleac was married to Maria Albot, a former member of the Shor faction in the Moldovan parliament and former shareholder at Banca Sociala. This is one of the three banks involved in the bank fraud. When she was a shareholder, Albot had the name of Maria Guțuleac.
CONNECTION TO THE RUSSIAN GONCHARENKO
The SIS states that Victor Gutuleac has also been connected to the controversial Russian businessman Andrey Goncharenko, the former beneficiary of the Chisinau International Airport who had conducted a few deals with former Moldovan oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc, now a fugitive too.
Andrey Goncharenko
According to the SIS, Gutuleac first came under the radar of the Anti-Money Laundering Service in 2021, for acting as a money-launder in the interest of a criminal group around Ilan Shor. During that period, the Shor Part was supporting Marina Tauber for the mayor of Balti, Moldova’s second largest city. The Moldovan Central Election Commission kicked Miss Tauber out of race during the second round for violation of campaign financing rules.
In November 2021, Mr. Gutuleac received on his Moldovan bank account 166 million Russian rubles, equivalent to over 2 million euros at the exchange rate of that day. The sender was Anastasya Dronova from Russia, a woman who – according to the SIS – has been associated with Russian oligarchs in good relations with top decision-makers in Moscow including Andrey Goncharenko. Moreover, the two visited Moldova together in June 2018.
RISE Moldova previously reported that in July 2018, Plahotniuc and Goncharenko swapped assets. The Moldovan oligarch, through his shell companies, received a yacht and a large villa in Spain from Goncharenko while the Russian – using front companies – received landmark properties in Chisinau including the GBC business center, the Gemenii Shopping Mall, and the National Hotel. RISE Moldova has covered these topics in the investigations „The Oligarch’s Yacht” and „The Oligarch’s Estate.” Today, Goncharenko is battling Moldovan courts to force prosecutors cancel the government confiscation of the GBC and a former Plahotniuc villa near the Parliament headquarters.
AN ANONYMOUS FIGURE
RISE Moldova has found the only publicly available photograph of Victor Gutuleac on the website of the Moldovan Orthodox Church, which is part of the Russian Orthodox Church. A press release published on 23 September 2022 identifies him as a participant in the Way of Cross and Repentance pilgrimage, in a few pictures. on the website of the Orthodox Church of Moldova, which is part of the Patriarchate of Moscow
In those pictures, Mr. Gutuleac, along with two men and a group of priests, is carrying an icon. One of the men next to Gutuleac also appears publicly in a photograph posted on Facebook by the Shor Party, at a meeting with Marina Tauber, an MP affiliated with Ilan Sor. The latter is currently under international sanctions and under criminal investigation in Chisinau.
The photo in which Victor Guțuleac appears [last on the right]. The man next to him appears in a photo with Marina Tauber in June 2022// source: mitropolia.md
During that period, the Shor Party erected a tent village in the center of the Moldovan capital, demanding the resignation of the ruling Action and Solidarity Party.
„Squeeze [Moldovan President] Maia Sandu like she squeezes you.” A rally organized by the Shor Party on 24 September 2022. Photo:partidulsor.com
The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office declined to confirm or deny whether any charges have been pressed against Victor Gutuleac, citing the confidentiality of the ongoing investigation. Similarly, the Anti-Money Laundering Service replied that it could not provide us with information about the investigations in which Guțuleac was targeted.
„MOLDOVAN VILLAGE”: FROM SPONSORS TO COURIERS
The Moldovan government has thwarted the voter bribery operation orchestrated by Ilan Shor via the „Moldovan Village” project and blocked Shved’s accounts, forcing the local public authorities to withdraw from the sponsorship agreements with the Israeli-Russian citizen. Even so, at the beginning of this year, Shor promised to bring another 1.5 billion lei into the country for the Bulgarian minority in Taraclia District, Gagauzian autonomy, and loyal villages in Orhei District.
The launch of the Victory Political Bloc in Moscow, April 21, 2024. capture: Facebook/Shor Party
In January 2024, the SIS updated the status of Igal Shved to “suspected associate” of Ilan Shor. The latter has taken refuge in Moscow, founded a political party called Pobeda (Victory), obtained Russian citizenship, and openly pursues a pro-Kremlin policy.
Mr. Shor has also changed the way of financing his campaigns. He no longer uses Kazakhstan bank wire transfers from sponsors like Shved – instead, he sends to Moldova couriers packed with cash.
A month ago, Moldovan border authorities apprehended several couriers from Moscow with a total of at least 20 million lei in cash at the Chisinau International Airport.
In mid-May, the Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases announced about a new seizure at the same airport: law enforcement officials confiscated 2.3 million lei from 50 couriers. An investigation is under way.
Marcela ZĂMOSTEANU
Editing: Nicolae CUȘCHEVICI
Fact-checking: RISE Moldova Fact-Checking Department
