Vlad Plahotniuc announced that he will appear as a witness in the case commonly known as the kuliok case, in which former president Igor Dodon stands accused. Plahotniuc made the statement at the opening of the court hearing in the bank fraud case, held today at the Chisinau Court, Buiucani branch. The former PDM leader did not provide further details about the kuliok case.
Prosecutors opened the kuliok case based on video recordings from June 2019 that show Igor Dodon in a discussion with former Democratic Party leader Vladimir Plahotniuc and former Democratic MP Serghei Iaralov at the PDM headquarters. The footage shows Plahotniuc handing Dodon a black bag that allegedly contained a large sum of money. According to the accusations, the money aimed to finance the Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova.
At the end of November 2025, judges of the Supreme Court of Justice decided to restart the examination of the case from the beginning after another change in the composition of the judicial panel. Since the case reached the Supreme Court in October 2022, the panel has changed at least seven times. Igor Dodon pleads not guilty and claims that the video recordings were manipulated.