Marbella is a place where the sun shines 320 days a year and the world’s rich buy chic villas. It is a region in Spain with the most golf courses. And if the money is flowing abundantly, it means that it’s the right place for investments.

No, this is not a real estate offer. It is rather the result of an oligarch’s ambition. Or the desire to back up his statement: „Money, for me, is a tool to make projects”. Or simply put, a way to hide the money.

THE PINES OF ALCUZCUZ
From the center of Marbella, a city on the southern coast of Spain, it takes a 20-minute drive to the place we are looking for. The estate is located in an urban area called „La Reserva del Alcuzcuz” and satellite images show a barrier that restricts the access to this property.

„Most areas of this kind have a barrier at the entrance, but during the day it is raised. The barrier only goes down in the evening, for security reasons”, says the taxi driver who takes us to the estate. We take a five-minute walk to the buildings to have a look at the surrounding area.

The area is part of Benahavis, one of the richest municipalities in the province of Malaga. It is nestled in a mountainous zone, and the villas and residential estates there are positioned in tiers, offering stunning views of the coastline from every property. It boasts 12 golf courses, a fact that makes it famous among the kings’ sport enthusiasts.

It is rumored that businessmen, artists, politicians, and oligarchs have properties there. The estate for which we traveled to Spain is there too. 

Los PINOS del ALCUZCUZ or „The Pines of Alcuzcuz” is the inscription on a wall that is worn out by rain and time, right at the estate entrance. It is visible through the wire fence that encloses a part of the complex. The walls, painted in white, and the tiled roof maintain the architectural appearance of the area. A few steps further and we saw the estate’s other side – gray walls, and then several brick-only constructions. The property, valued at nearly 56 million euros, is unfinished. The stains left by water flowing over time at the corners, along with the vegetation on the premises, indicate that nobody has passed by that place for a long time.

The place is quiet, you can only hear the cranes working on a few nearby villas. The road that winds past the estate leads to several other private properties while a warning sign says that the “access to this private road access is restricted.”

„Could this place be unguarded?” we wondered and – hoping to find a security guard – we passed through the gate.

„Los Pinos del Alcuzcuz” is the property of Moldovan oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc. Along with the yacht, the estate in Spain has been a source of contention in the lawsuit filed by Oxana Childescu in Cyprus.

GHOST FIRM
The property, which stretches over nearly three hectares, is officially owned by a local company named Magna Capanes SL. The company was founded in November 2004 and, according to the Spanish Commercial Registry, is involved in real estate development. However, since its inception until now, Los Pinos del Alcuzcuz has been the company’s sole project.

Magna Capanes purchased the land on which the estate stands in August 2005, and in November, it obtained an urban planning license to commence construction.

In 2005, the Spanish firm had a statutory capital of almost 21.9 million euros, and in late 2018 there was a capital increase. In October 2018, the company’s statutory capital increased to 55.7 million euros, which coincides with the estate’s evaluated price.

Public data from the Commercial Registry shows that the latest owner of Magna Capanes is the Cypriot company Kroniaco Management Limited.

WHERE „LOS PINOS,” „GEMENI,” AND HOTEL NATIONAL CROSSED THEIR ROADS
The swap took place in the fall of 2018. It was a transaction between the companies in control of the Spanish estate, of Hotel National in the Moldovan capital city, and of Gemeni SA; the latter owned a shopping mall with the same name in downtown Chisinau.

In the Nicosia court, Oxana Childescu recounted that she became the ultimate beneficiary of the Spanish property, as she called it, in October 2018. This happened as a result of „a series of transactions, including asset swaps between companies where she was the formal ultimate beneficiary and companies effectively owned by Russian businessman Andrey Goncharenko”.

Mr. Goncharenko is the one who sold to Vladimir Plahotniuc, again using an offshore web, the yacht „Honor” and who got in return a villa near the Parliament building, the Global Business Center, and a 10-hectare land plot near the North Bus Station in Chisinau.

During the period when Mr. Plahotniuc was acquiring „Los Pinos” in Spain, through the Gibraltar-based EFA Holdings Gibraltar and Cyprus-based Kroniaco Management (the latter mentioned in the lawsuit as a property of now Miss Childescu), another two transactions were taking place in Chisinau involving companies connected to the Benahavis estate.

The first transaction is about the decaying building of Hotel National, now closed. EFA Holdings transferred the company that owns the hotel to De Bron Administratie BV in the Netherlands. This happened on the same day De Bron Administratie and Trading House 2000 BV, another Dutch company, transferred the Spanish property to EFA Holdings and Kroniaco Management.

Six days later, the Gemeni shopping mall „moved” to the Netherlands, too. Kroniaco Management, which at that time owned 95.7% of Gemeni SA shares, via a newly-registered company, sold the shares to Trading House 2000 BV. Trading House 2000 is one of the former owners of the residential complex in Spain.

The real estate scheme worked similarly to the deal surrounding the yacht. Before the Gemeni shopping mall in Chisinau and Hotel National landed in the possession of Mr. Goncharenko from Plahotniuc, as stated in Childescu’s testimonies, the swap in Spain had already completed.

It is worth mentioning that in the summer of 2022, Moldovan prosecutors placed a seizure order on Hotel National in a case related to Metalferos, a former scrap metals collecting monopoly, in which Mr. Plahotniuc was indicted too. However, they attributed the property to businessman Vladimir Andronachi, a former member of the Parliament and a trusted person of the oligarch.

AN ABANDONED PROJECT?
We visited the estate in February. Weather services issued a warning for strong winds as rains continued for several days. The water level in the sea rose so much that owners of beachfront terraces closed their establishments.

The estate’s fence ends at an old pine tree, allowing us to walks through. On the left, the main building borders a small pine park. This is where the name „Los Pinos del Alcuzcuz” comes from, which means „The Pines of Alcuzcuz”. As we enter, we see a pile of discarded flower pots and a few advertising banners, face down. Bricks, wood, pots, and other construction materials lie in the water. A few pairs of work boots in advanced rotting process.

Work there seems to have stopped abruptly. In one of the buildings, we find dusty documents and plans. Once in the hands of skilled craftsmen, they now serve as shelter for a few insects. An entire drawer filled with invoices, building permits, and documents related to construction and related to the Magna Capanes company accrues dust on the ground floor.

From the building’s terrace there is a view of several golf courses, with the sea stretching out in the distance. No sign of a security guard, and the owner of Los Pinos del Alcuzcuz is nowhere to find.

10 February 2023, Marbella, Spain. We go to the legal address of Magna Capanes. At the reception desk, we are greeted by a woman who tells us that there is no such company in the building and that only law firms have offices there.

We also dialed the company’s official phone numbers, which either do not exist or no one picks up the call.

LUXURY APARTMENT AND PENTHOUSES
Construction of the Spanish residential estate kicked off in 2006, with some changes to its initial design over the course. Only the tropical garden with palm trees and abundant greenery remained unchanged. Even the walls were designed to provide space for plants.

Internet search engines would not return much information about „Los Pinos del Alcuzcuz” today. A website for this project, launched in 2006, has been inactive since 2017. And yet we managed to take a trip back in time to see what the project looked like in its early stages.

With light brown-colored walls, rooftop and on-site pools, the estate positioned itself as a luxurious compound with apartments and penthouses.

„Spacious, comfortable, and bright apartments, adorned with fine materials such as marble and wood, which will bring a distinguished touch to your home. With a modern, elegant, and warm design […], high-quality standards, shiny floors, air conditioning, jacuzzies, and Turkish baths in each apartment. Penthouses were designed with interior lifts, jacuzzies, pools, saunas, and barbecue areas,” as described in an early description on the project’s website.

Later on, the idea of so many pools on the premises was dropped, and their final number was reduced to three, while the walls were painted white. The latest data shows that the project envisages 105 apartments.

Grupo Leon y Asociados SL, a group of Spanish construction and real estate development companies, has been involved in the project since its inception. „Los Pinos del Alcuzcuz” was described in a brochure that advertised the group’s successful projects. This development group was responsible for advertising and sale of apartments.

We have sent a few questions directly to the manager of Grupo Leon y Asociados regarding „Los Pinos,” one of them asking why construction works have stopped and how many apartments have been sold. By the time of publication, the group has not responded.

RedPoint was specifically in charge with construction. The company advertises both completed and ongoing projects on its website, and Los Pinos is not among them. The website only features a few fragments of older articles about the construction phases.

RISE Moldova has sent inquiries to RedPoint, the company has chosen to ignore our questions, both by email and on social media.

FRONT MAN
Gheorghe-Cezar Chiriac is a 70-year-old Romanian man residing in Dubai. He appears in legal documents as the beneficiary of the property in Spain and the companies behind it. Mr. Chiriac, along with Ileana-Mihaela Burcea and Andrei Bogdan Gheorghiu, was accused by the former wife of Vladimir Plahotniuc in Cyprus, in a lawsuit meant to claim the yacht and the estate on the Costa del Sol.

According to testimonies for the lawsuit filed in October 2019, Mr. Chiriac was appointed as the ultimate beneficiary of the Spanish property at the suggestion of Mrs. Burcea and Mr. Gheorghiu. „Neither the claimant [Oxana Childescu], nor any member of her team knew” about Chiriac or „others who were expected to be named as ultimate beneficiaries of the corporate structures, due to the trust that the claimant and VP [Vladimir Plahotniuc] had in” Mr. Gheorghiu.

Miss Childescu explained that she used intermediaries „to ensure confidentiality regarding their property, in order to protect the political career of the vice president from political attacks, as well as to protect herself from the high-risk corporate environment in Moldova.” She requested the court to freeze the assets so that the property in Spain could not be disposed of without her knowledge.

We have not been lucky to speak to Gheorghe-Cezar Chiriac so far. Before the court in Cyprus, however, he denied any knowledge of Mrs./Miss Childescu or Mr. Plahotniuc, „neither personally nor through their representatives.” The Romanian man said he must be treated as the ultimate beneficiary of the Spanish property, claiming that he is „a successful and very wealthy businessman with multiple assets.” Regarding Oxana Childescu’s desire to get possession of the above-mentioned estate in Spain, he told the judge that she had learned about the estate from Mrs. Burcea and Mr. Gheorghiu. The woman, according to Chiriac, „was eager to invest in the property in order to complete the project, expecting a profit, but no money was contributed.”

„VP is an internationally wanted criminal who was a powerful Moldovan political figure with tremendous influence,” Chiriac’s defense said in a statement.

The court concluded that Miss Childescu defied international laws and „knowingly participated in internationally prohibited arrangements, including violations of the Law on the Prevention and Combating of Money Laundering. […] The claimant took measures to conceal from banks and competent authorities in various countries the fact that she was the true owner.”

In March 2020, the Nicosia Court rejected the lawsuit.

HOW AUTHORITIES RECOVER
In the case referred to as „Bank Fraud,” Moldovan prosecutors have seized several assets which are believed to belong to Vladimir Plahotniuc. The oligarch is accused in six criminal cases of large-scale fraud and money laundering, creating and leading a criminal organization, illicit enrichment, abuse of power, active corruption, and forgery of public documents.

Regarding the Spanish property and the yacht, we have sent inquiries to Vladimir Plahotniuc via his lawyer, but so far received no response.

In October and November of last year, RISE Moldova filed formal requests with the prosecutors for more information.

„It is premature to provide further information regarding the mentioned assets, as there is a risk of jeopardizing the criminal investigation,” responded the Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS), assuring that „measures are being taken to recover them grace to international legal assistance, by sending the appropriate requests to the competent authorities in Spain.”

At the same time, PCCOCS emphasized that „with regard to the assets owned by Vladimir Plahotniuc in Spain, particularly a luxury yacht and residential properties in the Marbella region,” according to the available data, „they have been transferred to other individuals.”

However, the prosecutors’ affirmation is only partially true—the yacht was never owned in Spain and never sailed under the Spanish flag. On the other hand, the estate in Marbella still belongs to companies affiliated to Plahotniuc. „Los Pinos del Alcuzcuz” is not under sequester, which means it may be disposed of at any time.

Marcela ZĂMOSTEANU

Editing: Nicolae CUȘCHEVICI
Fact-checking: Dumitru BACIU
Graphics: Roman FILIPPOV