It is a British partnership founded in 2008, which two years later was used to launder a part of the 22 billion dollars from Russian in 2010 through 2014, extracting the money via Moldova’s judiciary system and banks. The operation is largely known as the "Russian Laundromat".
Specifically, in July 2010, Ronida Invest concluded a fake agreement with Vizalor Limited, a Bahamas offshore, for services worth 200 million dollars. The payment was due within five months while two companies in the Russian Federation and one Moldovan national had acted as guarantors of the smooth business doing. The Moldovan national was needed in order to obtain a legal ground to acknowledge the debt fiction in a Moldovan court of law.
Thus, on 15 February 2011, the Riscani District Court in Chisinau cleared the collection of 200 million dollars in debt for the benefit of Ronida Invest, which was represented by a Ukrainian intermediary. The Bahamas offshore and the two companies in Russia were ordered to pay, though, in reality, only the Russian guarantors covered the fake debt, enabling money the unknown thieves to launder dirty money in the European Union and other countries.
Although there are many signs linking Ronida Invest to businessman Veaceslav Platon, the latter denied his status of owner of the British partnership. This denial cannot be explained because in a 2016 testimony for the Romanian Directorate for Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism, Mr. Platon confessed to have used the British firm in the acquisition of assets from Vladimir Plahotniuc, including an 83% stake in Asito, which had been officially owned by the UK-based Windon & Flanders Ltd.
According to Platon, the property transfer included “a secret deal” worth 5 million dollars. This was the commission from two firms involved in the Russian multi-billion-dollar fraud and Ronida Invest hid it in accounts of Kelway Trading SA, a Panama offshore company. The transaction took place on 5 December 2011 and was cleared in the bank with a fake agreement on the procurement of construction materials.
In 2017, RISE Moldova reported that Ronida Invest had received more than 100,000 dollars from Westburn Enterprises Ltd. (also involved in the Russian Laundromat), which was used to rent a luxury apartment in the City of London for the daughter of Moldovan judge Ion Muruianu. The magistrate then defended himself with claims that the payment was covered by “a rich shareholder and businessman” from Moldova, without going into details or naming the sponsor. On 16 June 2015, as the public was learning more about the Russian Laundromat, Ronida Invest ceased to exist.