Fugitive Moldovan Oligarch Plahotniuc Secretly Flew To Minsk

On a fake passport.

Moldovan billionaire Vlad Plahotniuc, who was recently detained in Greece, has been frequenting Moscow and Minsk in recent years under documents in a false name and negotiating with top Kremlin officials.

This is according to The Insider citing flight data and documents they managed to obtain.

The wiretap data obtained by the journalists shows that Plahotniuc communicated with Putin's deputy chief of staff Dmitry Kozak during his secret stay in Moscow. The last time Plahotniuc was in Moscow was in late April 2025.

Kremlin allegedly wanted to enlist the oligarch's support to influence political life in Moldova.

Plahotniuc's secret visits became known from the wiretapping materials of former Russian Trade Representative to Moldova Vladislav Darvay, which were at the disposal of the Moldovan investigative project "Small Country" - they were published in April 2025.

The journalists checked the information that appeared there and found out that a man with a passport in the name of Mikhail Taushanov had indeed first arrived in Moscow on June 4, 2024 from Dubai. A week after that, another negotiation with Kozak took place in Minsk.

After that, Plahotniuc flew to Moscow also in October 2024 and in March and April 2025.

According to the wiretaps, Plahotniuc had to carefully disguise himself during his first trip - using dark glasses and a cap with a low visor; a special official car was sent to the airport to pick him up, which the police could not stop to check.

Plahotniuc was also not supposed to leave his hotel room and allegedly paid extra to have the hotel gym reserved for him alone for certain hours - so that no one could recognize him there.

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