The administrator of a "Work & Travel" company was arrested by Office for Preventing and Combating Money Laundering of NAC last night. The man is suspected of organizing a money laundering scheme, as a result of which 168 beneficiaries of the program (students) suffered more than MDL 2 million damage through a bank card fraud.

According to FIU investigations, the suspect would have used the personal data of students who applied for the "Work & Travel" Program and worked in the U.S. in 2012, in order to open cards in two domestic banks on behalf of the 168 young people.

The man could take possession of the cards after he created a company and would have asked the banks to issue cards to pay its employees.

Note that following work carried out in the U.S., students must have been refunded from the U.S. Tax Service, money received by the suspect. U.S. money entered the card accounts opened on behalf of students without their consent and was extracted  from ATMs of the country by t he suspect.

Preliminary data of the survey show that between 10 and 40 cards have been used for 24 hours, the highest amount being between MDL 1 000 – 5 000 for each operation.

NAC investigators conducted several home and office searches, as a result of which 78 cards were found, also envelopes of Moldovan and foreign banks, containing confidential information about bank accounts, bank ATM cash withdrawal letters from the U.S. Department of Revenue on behalf of Moldovan individuals received by express mail.

A criminal prosecution on abuse of office and money laundering was started on this case. The man faces up to 15 years in prison, if convicted. He is in custody of NAC for 72 hours.