The United States on Wednesday imposed sanctions on 21 individuals and companies that are supposedly connected to Russian attempts to exercise Moscow's influence over Moldova, including an Israeli millionaire and his wife.
The U.S. Treasury Department list names Ilan Shor, who was convicted of money laundering and embezzlement to the tune of billion dollars stolen from three banks in Moldova and fled to Israel.
A statement said that Shor, a resident of Caesarea who served as president of the Israel-Moldova Chamber of Commerce and chairman of Ort Moldova, was blacklisted for allegedly attempting to disrupt the upcoming U.S. mid-term elections to aid Russia directly or indirectly.
Shor’s wife Sara Lvovna Shor, a famous singer better known by her stage name Jasmin, was also hit with sanctions.
Jasmin, who has released 10 studio albums, is also an actress, model and TV presenter.
Ilan Shor was born in Israel to parents who immigrated from Moldova. The family returned to Chisinau in the early nineties when Shor was a child and he started his business at the age of 18 when he became a partner with his father, Miron Shor, who opened a chain of duty-free stores in Moldova.
After his father passed away, Shor inherited the business and expanded it to new territories.
Shor became the owner of ShorHoldings and over the past decade he was considered one of the richest businessmen in Moldova, and his fortune was estimated at the tens of millions of dollars.
According to a U.S. State Department statement, it is “also designating Ilan Shor, leader of the Shor Party, pursuant to the primary U.S. Russia sanctions authority (E.O. 14024), for being responsible for or complicit in, or having directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in interference in a foreign government election, for or on behalf of, or for the direct or indirect benefit of the Government of the Russian Federation.
A beneficiary of a large-scale 2014 money laundering scheme related to the theft of $1 billion from Moldovan banks, Shor has worked with other corrupt oligarchs and Moscow-based entities to create political unrest in Moldova and sought to undermine Moldova’s bid for EU candidate status.”
In 2017, Shor was sentenced to seven years in prison in his fraud case. The sum stolen makes up about an eighth of the GDP of Moldova — one of the poorest countries in Europe.
The French newspaper Le Monde previously reported that a special committee of the European Parliament, which examined the issue, estimated that the money was transferred to Russian banks. In 2019, it was announced that Shor fled to Israel.