Ilan Shor (or Șor;[2]Hebrew: אילן שור;[3] born 6 March 1987) is an Israel-born Moldovan oligarch[4] and politician. In 2014, Shor "masterminded" a scam that saw US$1 billion disappear from Moldovan banks,[5] resulting in a total loss equivalent to 12% of Moldova's GDP and the arrest of former Prime MinisterVlad Filat.[6] In June 2017, he was sentenced to 7.5 years of prison in absentia for fraud and money laundering and on 14 April 2023 his sentence was increased to 15 years. All of Shor's Moldovan assets were also frozen.[7] After spending time under house arrest he fled to Israel in 2019, where he currently lives.[8]
On 26 October 2022, the United States sanctioned him due to his working with "corrupt oligarchs and Moscow-based entities to create political unrest in Moldova".[9] The United Kingdom and European Union have also sanctioned Shor.[10] His pro-Russian party, the Șor Party, was banned by the Constitutional Court of Moldova on 19 June 2023 after months of protests organized by his party. According to the court, these protests were designed to destabilize Moldova and foment a coup in order to install a pro-Russian government.[11][12]
Personal life
Shor was born in Tel Aviv, Israel on 6 March 1987, the son of Miron and Maria Shor,[13]Moldovan Jews from Chișinău who had moved to Israel in the late 1970s.[14] The family returned to Chișinău around 1990, when Shor was either two or three years old, and his father went into business in Moldova.[2][14] His father died in 2005.[15] Shor has been married to the Russian singer Sara Lvovna Shor, who goes by the stage name Jasmin, since 2011.[15][16] In addition to Jasmin's son from a previous marriage, they have a daughter, Margarita, who was born in 2012, and a son, Miron, who was born in 2016.[17]
He owns several Moldovan businesses, including a company named Dufremol (Duty-free) and the FC Milsamifootball club. In 2014, he became the chairman of the board of the Savings Bank of Moldova.[18]
In the week preceding the 2014 Moldovan parliamentary elections, more than $750 million (~$918 million in 2022) were extracted from the three banks between 24 and 26 November. A van belonging to Klassica Force, a company owned by Shor, was stolen while transporting 12 sacks of bank files and burned on November 27.[19] Records of many transactions were deleted from the banks' computers.[20] On 26 November 2014, the banks went bankrupt and were later placed under special administration of the National Bank of Moldova. On 27 November, the Moldovan Government, headed by Prime Minister Iurie Leancă, secretly decided to bail out the three banks with $870 million in emergency loans, covered from state reserves. This created a deficit in Moldovan public finances equivalent to an eighth of the country's GDP, which will have to be paid for by the Moldovan taxpayer.
Auditors from Kroll reviewed transactions at the three banks with missing funds in November 2014. The report documents how companies tied to Shor gradually took control of the banks and then allegedly issued massive loans to affiliated companies. It concluded the three banks transferred at least 13.5 billion lei to five Moldovan companies affiliated with the Shor group, controlled by Shor, between November 24 and 26.[21][22]
In March 2015, Ilan Shor was suspected by the National Anti-Corruption Center (NAC) for his work in the Savings Bank. On 17 March 2015 he was questioned for 8 hours and anti-corruption officers seized his personal property. On May 6, 2015, Shor was placed under house arrest. As of 2015, Shor was allowed to move freely, after a period of house arrest. This is because he fully cooperated with the investigation. Despite this, he was allowed to register for electoral race for the mayor of city of Orhei, a contest in which he won 62% of the vote on June 14 local government election.[15][23][24]
In October 2015, Vlad Filat, former prime minister of Moldova and leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, was investigated for his involvement in the fraud and was accused of having taken bribes of about $250 million from Shor. On June 27, 2016, Vlad Filat was sentenced to 9 years in prison.[25]
Shor was sentenced to 7.5 years in prison in June 2017 for money laundering, fraud and breach of trust, in relation to the banks, Shor who was under house arrest pending an appeal, is currently living in Israel, having fled there in 2019.[26]
On 13 April 2023, the appeal court doubled the sentence to 15 in years in prison in absentia on graft charges and froze all his assets.[27][28][29]
Political career
Mayor of Orhei
On 14 June 2015, Shor was elected mayor of the Moldovan town of Orhei[30] with 62% of the vote, a post he held until April 2019.
According to the polls made in 2019 related to the most popular politicians in Moldova, Shor was ranked at the third position among the top politicians in which Moldovans had the highest trust,[31] and by some polls he was ranked at the sixth[32][33] and at the seventh position accordingly.[34]
Whilst in exile, and with an arrest warrant outstanding, Shor was elected to the Parliament of Moldova in 2019 on the Șor Party list. he was re-elected in the 2021 Moldovan parliamentary election as one of six Șor Party MP's.[26] Following confirmation of his conviction, on 27 April 2023 Shor was removed as an MP, an appeal being rejected.[35]
Shor is a pro-Moscow opposition figure in Moldovan politics who has been described as "a leading figure in the Kremlin’s efforts to subvert" the Republic of Moldova, according to intelligence reports.[36] Shor is known by the moniker of "the young one" by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), which, according to intercepted communications, sent Russian political strategists to assist Shor's political party.[36]
Banning of Șor Party and Ilan Shor from Moldovan politics
On 19 June 2023 the Șor Party was banned by the Constitutional Court of Moldova.[37] The court had declared the party unconstitutional with court chairman Nicolae Roșca citing "an article in the constitution stating that parties must through their activities uphold political pluralism, the rule of law and the territorial integrity of Moldova."[38]
On 31 July, the Moldovan parliament voted in favour of banning the leaders of the dissolved Șor Party – including Ilan Shor – from standing in elections for a period of five years.[39] Shor has claimed he will contest the ban.
On 9 December 2022 the United Kingdom HM Treasury imposed sanctions, considering Shor an involved person under the Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions Regulations, involved in serious corruption with respect to bribery of foreign public officials.[41]
In June 2023 Ilan Shor created a new Moldovan political group, the ‘Chance, Obligations, Achievements’ political bloc whose abbreviation in Moldovan is S.O.R., with Shor inviting all political parties to join the group.[43] A clone party, called “ȘANSĂ” or Chance party, led by journalist Alexei Lungu believed to have been established by Ilan Shor,[44] was deregistered two days before the November local elections amid claims of using illegal funds from Russia.[45]
In September 2023, his political party reportedly gathered support and "seized" the ethnic enclave of Gagauzia via embezzled money.[46]
^ abKrasotin, Igor (6 September 2013). Илан Шор. Биография миллиардера и мужа певицы Жасмин [Ilan Shor. Biography of the Millionaire and husband of the singer Jasmin]. 1tvnet (in Russian). Saint Petersburg. Retrieved 18 June 2015.
