Former Moldovan President Igor Dodon has been detained for 72 hours as part of a criminal case initiated under four articles of the criminal code, including high treason, Marianna Kerpec, spokeswoman for the country’s Prosecutor General’s Office, told reporters.

On Tuesday morning, it became known that searches were being carried out in the ex-president’s house. The Prosecutor General’s Office reported that the searches were being carried out in the “case of a bag” (a bag is a package).

We are talking about video footage from 2019 from the office of the Democratic Party of Moldova. In the video, the oligarch Vladimir Plahotniuc, who headed the party, hands Dodon a package (bag), which allegedly contained money, Interfax comments. From the conversation between Plahotniuc and Dodon, it becomes clear that the money that Dodon takes from Plahotniuc is intended to finance the Party of Socialists of Moldova. Dodon led the Socialist Party.

Dodon was President of Moldova from December December 2016 to December 2020. He has embarked on a course of close cooperation with Russia and has met frequently with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Dodon made his first foreign visit as President of Moldova in January 2017 to Moscow. That same year, on May 9, he was the only foreign president to attend the Victory Parade on Red Square.

In November 2020, in the second round of the presidential elections, Dodona was defeated by Maia Sandu, who was called a pro-Western candidate.

Now, according to the press service of the Moldovan Prosecutor General’s Office, the former president is suspected of four criminal articles: treason, passive corruption, financing of the party by a criminal organization and illegal enrichment.

“Searchs were carried out in the house and some premises belonging to Dodon. He was detained for 72 hours,” said Kerpek (quoted by Interfax).

Investigative measures have been going on for more than five hours, Dodon has not yet been detained, later the prosecutor’s office clarified. Then they again announced the detention of the ex-president.

Last week, Acting Prosecutor General Dmitry Robu signed a resolution reopening the criminal case over the high-profile “bag” scandal. He canceled the order of the dismissed Prosecutor General Alexander Stoianoglo, who in May 2020 refused to initiate a case, citing a lack of evidence. On October 5, 2021, Stoianoglo himself was detained in a corruption case.

In the video, Dodon asks Plahotniuc to “hand over the package to Costa” (presumably to ex-deputy from the Democratic Party of Moldova Constantin Botnari), who in turn will hand it over to “Cornel” (presumably Corneliu Furculita, a member of the Party of Socialists, PSRM). Dodon says that “the money must immediately be given to Corneliu, who must pay the salaries of the PSRM activists.”

Plahotniuc has become a symbol of corruption in Moldova and the main object of criticism from the opposition under President Dodon. He left the country. The Basmanny Court of Moscow in 2018 arrested Plahotniuc in absentia on charges of attempted murder.

Dodon said last week that he was not going to leave Moldova and intends to fight against the current government.

“They can do something against me, they can conduct searches, they can arrest me for some time” out of lawlessness.

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