Will a fugitive oligarch sway Moldova’s election?

0:01Ilan Shor:In June 2017, Moldovan businessman Ilan Shor was found guilty of committing one of the most audacious heists in modern history. But gaining control of three banks and using them to make loans to foreign shell companies, Shor siphoned approximately a billion dollars out of his country in a matter of days. The transactions were wiped from the bank's servers and a security van filled with paper records was stolen and later found burnt to a crisp. The crime was dubbed the fraud of the century and left a dent in Moldova's economy, equivalent to 12 % of the nation's GDP. Ilan Shaw appealed against his conviction for money laundering, then fled the country, first to Israel and then to Russia, where he remains a fugitive on the run from the Moldovan authorities.

0:57Ilan Shor:You might think Moldova had seen the last of him, but you'd be wrong. On the 28th of September, the nation of just over 2 million people will go to the polls to elect new MPs. French President Emmanuel Macron showed up in person to bolster Moldova's pro-EU President Maya Sandu.

1:25Ilan Shor:He warned of relentless efforts to sway the election, stemming from Russia. And it's believed fugitive businessman, and for a while Moldovan MP Ilan Shaw, has been a key player in those campaigns. He stands accused of flooding his country with disinformation and spreading lies in a bid to draw Moldova under the influence of Moscow.

1:51Ilan Shor:This anti-government protest held in the capital city of Chisinau in August was rumoured to have been staged, its participants paid to be there by Ilhan Shaw himself. This is the documentary with BBC Trending, and I'm Seamus Miradan. I've been directing an undercover investigation, taking us inside one of those campaigns against the government, trying to find out how they work and who is behind them. Just a bit more of the same.

2:24Ilan Shor:I'm in a flat in Kisinau with our team, briefing Anna, our undercover reporter. She's going to be key to this investigation. So maybe like one more minute of the same and then again leave the box. With the help of some Moldovan journalists, we've gained access to a secret telegram group that's been used to recruit Moldovans sympathetic to anti-EU rhetoric.

2:51Ilan Shor:The group is led by Alina Zhuk, a woman in her 30s with an impeccably curated Instagram profile. She was a member of a campaign group, now banned in Moldova and allegedly run by Ilan Shaw. And she's made frequent trips to Moscow over the last few years. Anna has been trying to get close to Alina and joining in with the group's activities.

3:21Ilan Shor:Kitted out with secret cameras, Anna joins Alina and others from the Telegram group in a park in the capital where the group film themselves smiling and chanting for social media videos. They're asked to wear branded t-shirts and carry questionnaires bearing the name of an organisation that, as we found out later, doesn't appear to exist.

3:54Ilan Shor:One evening, Anna gets a call.

4:01Ilan Shor:It's Alina. She has word of a special job she wants Anna to help out with.

4:11Ilan Shor:Alina says Anna can make the equivalent of$170 a month, making TikTok and Facebook posts from accounts in fake names. And she puts Anna in touch with a new handler, Milena, who says something important.

4:28Ilan Shor:On a phone call, Milena confirms the offer of cash in exchange for making social media posts. And here's the thing. Milena says the payment will be made through PSB Bank, information that's critical to our investigation.

4:48Ilan Shor:PSB has financial ties to Ilan Shor. It has a stake in one of his companies, and it's based in Moscow. The bank is owned by the Russian government, so Anna's payments will be sent from abroad in exchange for political campaigning. That's illegal under Moldovan law and deemed election interference.

5:15Ilan Shor:As part of our investigation, Anna agrees to take the job. And Milena's colleague texts her a link to an online social media masterclass.

5:32Ilan Shor:This is a Russian-speaking media trainer who says he'll show Anna how to make political videos for TikTok. He selects a photo of President Maya Sandhu, doctored to make her look like a clown, and sets it to music.

5:53Ilan Shor:The trainer teaches Anna to add an AI-generated voice to her videos.

6:01Ilan Shor:This one is reciting more anti-government messaging.

6:07Ilan Shor:After 45 minutes, the lesson is over. And from there, the work itself begins.

6:17Maia Sandu:So here we've logged all the requests that have come in through the Telegram group. Yeah, and on the right here we have our English translation.

6:24Ilan Shor:I'm with Rowan Ings and Andrea Jitaru. They're part of the investigative team based in London, and they've been analysing the instructions for social media posts that Anna has been receiving from her handlers. So how does this work? These requests, they come in through Telegram, is that right?

6:38Maia Sandu:Yeah, exactly. Anna gets a request to post almost every single day. And if you have a look at this one, it's from a couple of weeks ago, it's asking us to say that LGBT values are foreign to Moldova and that joining the EU will mean that Moldovan citizens will need to change their sexual orientation.

6:54Ilan Shor:OK, so a completely bogus claim.

6:57Maia Sandu:Right.

6:58Ilan Shor:So people in this group are actually acting on these instructions and posting what's basically disinformation online.

7:03Maia Sandu:That's what we've been monitoring. How these requests in the Telegram group turn into live social media posts that we can see. So there's an example here. This one is super dramatic.

7:17Ilan Shor:Oh, nice. This is a live TikTok video.

7:20Maia Sandu:Yeah, you can see these protesters are holding a sign and it says, down with Maya Sandu. And we're confident that this has come from someone who received the same instructions we did. Because the posts follow the exact same rules, the messaging is identical, even the hashtags match.

7:36Ilan Shor:And are we seeing a lot of this?

7:37Maia Sandu:So if I pull up this chart, you can see I've been mapping out the network. and on TikTok I've found 90 accounts that are posting content like this.

7:45Ilan Shor:OK, so a lot.

7:47Maia Sandu:They've got 24 million views this year. And we think that this is just the tip of the iceberg because we know the same network exists on Facebook. And I've also shared this with a Moldovan social media analyst who says that these accounts that I've found are part of a bigger network with closer to 50 million views just on TikTok this year.

8:07Ilan Shor:Coming up after the break, I speak with Moldova's president, Maya Sandhu, about attempts to influence the forthcoming election, stemming from abroad.

8:15Maia Sandu:Yes, this can be very damaging. It can have a significant implication on the results of the elections.

8:22Ilan Shor:This is the documentary from the BBC World Service. This is the documentary with BBC Trending, and I'm Seamus Miradan. In Moldova, our undercover reporter Anna has been offered the equivalent of$170 a month to post disinformation on social media, trolling the Moldovan government. And we've uncovered a wide network of accounts, presumably run by other Moldovan citizens who've also been promised payment. That money is set to come from a bank owned by the Russian government and linked to Ilan Shor, a Moldovan oligarch on the run from the country's authorities. It's a clear breach of Moldova's electoral laws.

9:06Ilan Shor:I wanted to find out how the Moldovan authorities were trying to tackle the problem. And so I went to meet Moldova's most senior police officer.

9:19Ilan Shor:My name is Veoril Cernatiano. I'm the chief of police of Moldova. In 2024, a police investigation led by Mr Cherno Tianu found that more than 130 ,000 Moldovans, some 10 % of the electorate, had received funding through a pro-Russian network with Ilan Shaw at its heart. This year, he tells me, Shaw's campaign has evolved further still. In 2024, the focus of the campaign was money.

9:49Maia Sandu:This year, the focus is disinformation. Right now, that's the biggest obstacle we are facing. It's much more sophisticated. TikTok is one of the primary tools, and the police force alone has requested that thousands of accounts are blocked.

10:04Ilan Shor:I asked Mr Chernatianu how the campaign was being funded, and he tells me more about PSB, the bank through which Anna, our undercover reporter, has been promised payment.

10:16Maia Sandu:At the moment, the vast majority of financing comes through PSB Bank. All the money comes in that way. All the money that is sent to pay people in exchange for protesting against the government.

10:30Ilan Shor:Does Ilan Shor have a stake in that bank?

10:33Maia Sandu:It's not Ilan Shor's bank. PSB is headed by the Russian Deputy Minister of Defence.