‘We can say that the protest movement in our country is reborn.’ This was the message of Igor Bocan, a member of the Demnitatea și Adevăr (Dignity and Justice) platform, speaking atop a makeshift platform to people gathered near the government building in Chişinău. The reason? The theft of a billion euros from Moldova’s banking system, which, in the words of Bocan, has led to the ‘devaluation of the national currency, a rise in prices and poverty for a people who are already poor.’
On Sunday, Chişinău saw an unprecedented number of protesters gather: more than 100,000 people according to the organisers, 40,000 according to Moldova’s Interior Ministry.
‘Theft of the century’
‘Theft of the century’, that’s what the media calls the disappearance of one billion dollars from three Moldovan banks. This theft is already the subject of an investigation by American company Kroll, which, after the news broke, won the National Bank’s tender for an initial investigation at the end of 2014.
