MoldATSA - A Scandal that Keeps Growing
The fake pilot story grabbed the headlines. The bigger questions are about executive pay, shareholder oversight and how Moldova governs its state-owned companies.
Multi-Layered Scandal at MoldATSA
Last week ZdG released an investigation into Dumitru Vangheli, director of the State Enterprise MoldATSA. Their investigation found that he won the job while presenting false aviation credentials on his CV. This initial investigation has now spiraled into multiple scandals that continue to present unanswered questions.
MoldATSA is a state owned company that provides air navigation services in Moldova. They manage the country’s air traffic control systems, radars, navigation systems, meteorological data and they coordinate with neighboring countries on air traffic control. The company is self-financing and its income is primarily made up from overflight fees charged to airlines that utilize Moldovan airspace. Its owner is the Moldovan government and it is managed by the State Property Agency (APP).
Dumitru Vangheli is (not) a Pilot
The initial investigation targeted MoldATSA Director Dumitru Vangheli who was appointed in 2025 after a competition organized by the APP. On his resume, Vangheli claimed to have gotten his ATPL pilots license from the prestigious CargAir Piloting School in St Hubert Canada (2011-2012). This is the highest grade of pilot’s license and would have licensed him to fly commercial airliners. It requires 1500 hours of flight time, as compared to 70 hours for a basic pilots license or 200 hours for a commercial license. Following this his CV claims he worked as a co-pilot for Air Canada (2012-2014) flying ATR-72 and Boeing 737 Next Generation planes.
None of this is true. ZdG found that he did attend some part-time flying lessons at CargAir in 2018 but did not even attain a basic pilots license. Air Canada confirmed that he never worked for them - and that they had neither ATR-72, nor Boeing 737 Next Generation aircraft in their fleets at the time.
When initially asked about these discrepancies by ZdG journalists he replied:
“You understand that these are secret missions, and they are not going to disclose them to you, because you are not the secret services,”
A few days later he responded to questions in writing in more detail, but avoided explaining any of the discrepancies on his CV or his public wealth declarations.
Dumitru Vangheli’s Companies are… Confusing
On his CV Vangheli claimed a founder, CEO or administrator role in 4 companies - 2 in Moldova and 2 in Canada. ZdG found evidence of 6 more companies in each jurisdiction connected to him. The common thread is that by 2026 all of these companies are defunct, closed or deregistered. Beyond that, the story is much more opaque. On his wealth and asset declarations he claims millions of lei and hundreds of thousands of Canadian dollars in dividends from companies that shortly after ceased to exist. He claims cash accounts equivalent to millions of US dollars spread across lei, Canadian dollars and virtual currencies. He also claims 6 cars - a Rolls-Royce Ghost, Lexus RX 450H, Tesla Model S, Ford Escape PHEV, Toyota Camry and Mazda CX5.
At the same time he has taken out loans from Moldovan banks totaling €640,000 euros against his home equity.
Vangheli also reported donating 40,000 lei to the PAS electoral campaign 2 weeks after he was appointed director. This would have been in September 2025 in the middle of the election campaign.
There is no clear indication of wrongdoing here, but the numbers certainly raise a lot of questions. The starkest of them however is his salary at MoldATSA… and not only his salary.
MoldATSA is a Very Lucrative Place to Work
Before he even became the director of MoldATSA, as acting director in 2024 salaries began going up, including his own. That year he received a bonus of 99,000 lei and a “work intensity supplement” of 39,000 lei. In 2024 his salary was reported as 64,000 lei / month. By 2025 this was 112,000 lei / month.
Huge salary raises were not at all limited to the company director. Numerous employees reported exceptionally large salaries and the average salary at the company climbed from 24,400 lei / month in 2020 to 63,500 lei / month in 2025. It was also in 2025 that Mr. Vangheli hired his girlfriend on Valentine’s day with a salary of 85,000 lei / month.
In Moldova, the national average salary in 2025 is 17,400 lei / mo and the minimum wage is 6,300 lei / mo.
Explaining the salary increases, Vangheli stated that the company had become much more profitable under his tenure (which is true) and that it was important to pay air traffic controllers competitive salaries as they are professionally quite mobile.
While it is true the air traffic controllers are paid quite well, these salary increases went well beyond controllers and included junior accountants and operational staff as well.
Suspended and Removed
Following the release of the ZdG investigation the Public Property Agency (APP) first suspended and then dismissed Dumitru Vangheli. The APP has stated that his CV was not verified as part of the hiring process and was essentially taken on trust.
Maia Sandu’s Cousin Benefited from a Large Salary at MoldATSA
Anastasia Taburceanu, cousin of Maia Sandu and former press officer for Prime Minister Gavrilita was also reported to work for MoldATSA. When approached by ZdG she sated that her salary was 25,700 lei / month but noted that she was also paid bonuses which she refused to specify.
RISE Moldova then produced an investigation showing that her effective salary for 2025 was more than 75,000 lei / month, a much larger figure which climbed to 120,000 lei / month in 2026.
Taburceanu explained that her job with the company was in communications and that she was managing a rebranding effort as well as marketing campaigns and a relaunch of the company website. At the same time, this is not her only job. RISE found that she had multiple consulting contracts with various think tanks in 2025 - at times being seconded to the government for various projects.
Most confusingly, when talking to ZdG she sated that part of her activity is promoting the government implementation of the EU Growth Plan. She stated:
“The Growth Plan is implemented by the Government, so what I do is for all ministries. I collect information from my colleagues in the ministries and work with them. And those in the ministries are also responsible for the final communication products. The terms of reference state that I provide services for the State Chancellery,”
Later to RISE she clarified that this work is separate, but she did not comment on her contractual relationship with the State Chancellery or what she is paid for that work.
Following these revelations, Anastasia Taburceanu resigned from MoldASTA and promised to return all bonuses and supplements above her basic salary that she received while employed at the company. She went on to state:
"I am sorry that, through my individual actions and decisions, people were affected who had no connection to the given situation ,"
President Sandu later weighed in on the situation regarding MoldASTA and her cousin saying:
“I had absolutely nothing to do with this hiring. I didn’t recommend her, I wasn’t informed, and I wasn’t consulted about it. I only learned from the media investigations published in recent days that she had been hired without a competition and about the salary she received. It’s obvious that no communications role could justify 120,000 lei. I simply can’t imagine what a communications officer could produce to warrant that kind of salary, just as I can’t imagine what a driver could produce to justify receiving 60,000 lei a month.
The only people who should receive high, internationally competitive salaries are air traffic controllers, because the safety of our airspace depends on them. Everyone else appears to have received unearned money. I don’t know what she produced, but in my view it is immoral to accept money that hasn’t been earned, and that money should be returned. In the worst-case scenario, if it cannot be returned to MoldATSA, then all of it should be donated to an orphanage, a nursing home, or another worthy cause. There are plenty of ways to ensure that this money goes where it is deserved, rather than where it was not.”
Analysis - What’s Going on and What’s Next?
While there’s already a lot going on here this scandal has the feel of not quite being over yet1. We’ll keep following this story in the weeks to come, but I wanted to end today with some context and by highlighting the things I’ll be watching going forward.
What is going on with Dumitru Vangheli?
There is a LOT going on with Mr. Vangheli. At best he lied on his CV about his piloting background. At the same time, the whole CV is very suspect looking. The dates and roles overlap quite a bit. He claims to have been studying Spanish and French at the same time as he was getting his ATPL pilots license, while simultaneously running a company providing food catering services to multiple airlines and Starbucks. Then, while claiming to be a pilot, he was also founding a startup and acting as the CEO. This company had 2 departments - one running refrigerated food logistics, the other also providing airline catering services.
It’s possible that the companies are real and he overlaid the piloting information on the CV to burnish it. It is also quite possible that none of this is real and Mr. Vangheli is either a conman or a fantasist. In any case, a cursory reading of this resume should have raised serious questions - and apparently it didn’t.
Is there a crime here related to the salaries?
This is one of the most important and most complicated parts of this story when it comes to political perception. Firstly, MoldATSA is self funding and clearly quite profitable. So no Moldovan tax dollars are implicated in these huge salaries. It would be reasonable to speculate that if the company was being run profitably then those profits would accrue to the state itself as the shareholder. So, by this logic, artificially inflating their salaries the management and staff were defrauding their shareholders.
But that is not true the case here. Under international regulations MoldATSA says that they may only pay out a maximum of 5% profit to its shareholders. Any additional profits, after expenses, must be refunded to their airlines themselves. So, provided this is accurate, the real question is whether or not these salaries were unreasonable expenses based on the company’s regulations and international norms. The APP has launched an audit of MoldATSA to investigate this and has decided to audit 21 other state owned company’s salary practices as well.
The bigger question might be about how these salaries were approved and how they were overseen, that takes us to questions of…
Governance of State Owned Companies
This is a long term problem for Moldova. The State Property Agency (APP) was quick to state that they do not set executive compensation at the companies they manage nor do they set employee renumeration policies. That is technically true, but skips the fact that the APP has a seat on MoldATSA’s board.
The board is theoretically responsible for this kind of oversight and a quick look at the board composition shows immediate issues. All the board members except for 1 are representatives of ministries or state institutions. State Secretaries from the Ministry of Finance or Economy, Infrastructure or the State Chancellory, etc. The one exception is former Prime Minister Dorin Recean who was appointed as an unpaid board member on the same day as the first ZdG story broke.
“Unpaid” is an important word there. The APP stated that Mr. Recean was appointed to “contribute to strengthening the framework for managing aviation security risks.” That is a solid fit with his resume.
Most board members of state owned companies are paid however. The fact that they are mostly given to junior ministry employees has often been used as a sort of salary sweetener. Raising public sector salaries in Moldova is politically really challenging, so the board seats on the more than 200 state owned companies provide a lot of opportunities for salary supplements.
I’m not saying that none of these or any other board members for state companies are unqualified. I am saying that these boards are in no way diverse or independent. This is a long term problem in Moldova and one that is very common regionally - especially in the former Soviet space. So while this scandal is a lot more complicated than “the board didn’t do its job,” it does highlight how these boards aren’t really fit for purpose.
Anastasia Taburceanu - what’s going on there?
Firstly, I think we can state pretty clearly what isn’t going on. This story has gotten attention because Taburceanu is President Sandu’s cousin, but there is no indication whatsoever that this hire was about nepotism. Anastasia Taburceanu’s CV is very impressive and her experience puts her in the top tier of communications and PR professionals in Moldova.
So while I don’t think this is a family / insider story, I do think there is a story to watch around her salary. It is legitimately difficult to imagine what job she could be doing for MoldATSA that would justify such a high monthly payment. Keep in mind - this isn’t a high paid consultant coming in to do a brand overhaul, this is a salaried employee. It would be hard to reconcile if she was working there full time… but she wasn’t.
Taburceanu stated that part of her work was in support of the government’s EU Growth Plan for the State Chancellery. She then tried to clarify to RISE that this was unrelated to her work at MoldATSA, but did not explain what her contractual relationship with the Chancellery is. RISE also showed that she had other contracts in 2025 - some with the government or funded by donors in support of government agencies.
What is clear is that her work at MoldATSA was in no way full time. That raises even more questions about the amount she was being paid. How this interacted with her role at the State Chancellery remains an open question.
All of this is made more significant because she immediately resigned and offered to return her bonuses - and because President Sandu called the payments “immoral.”
No version of this looks good and there is a lot we don’t know here. I will be watching this space in particular in the weeks to come.
Extra-parliamentary opposition politicians are already making lots of unsubstantiated (as of yet) new accusations related to MoldATSA and whether or not they prove to have merit, there is a LOT going on here already.
Multe companii de stat, care nu se referă la monopolul strict de stat, este necesar de privatizat complet, sau cu cotă de participare a statului (în dependență de caz)