Police and prosecutors detained several people after searches at five fraudulent call centers in Chisinau

Several people were detained in Chisinau in a case concerning a network made up of five fraudulent call centers. The searches were carried out on Friday evening by officers of the National Investigations Inspectorate, together with police officers from Balti and prosecutors from the Balti Municipal Prosecutor’s Office, with the support of the Fulger Special Purpose Brigade.

Investigators are examining the network’s activities and the way in which the suspects allegedly contacted potential victims, including customers of banks in the European Union. In a similar case, the operators posed as employees of bank security departments and gained access to victims’ mobile applications. The money was subsequently transferred to accounts belonging to intermediaries or to cryptocurrency platforms.

The case is part of an international investigation into networks of this kind. In July 2026, authorities from the Republic of Moldova, Romania and Ukraine, with the support of Europol and Eurojust, dismantled a network operating in Ukraine that had approximately 180 operators from the Republic of Moldova.

The phenomenon grew after Ukraine’s Prosecutor General, Ruslan Kravchenko, resigned in September 2026 amid a corruption scandal linked to the alleged protection of such networks.