Police in Moldova say they have identified one of the perpetrators of a series of spray-painted Stars of David that appeared last month on buildings in Paris as being a Moldovan citizen who was acting on orders from fugitive businessman Ilan Shor in order to “denigrate the Republic of Moldova.”
Some 60 blue Stars of David resembling those on the flag of Israel were painted on buildings in Paris and several suburbs on October 31, triggering alarm about surging anti-Semitism in France during the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.
Moldova’s General Police Inspectorate released a photo of the man on November 29 after RFE/RL requested information about the fate of Moldovan citizens involved in the activities in Paris at the end of October.
The police photo did not include the man’s name, but he appears to be Aleksandr Cocii, who lives in Moldova’s Moscow-backed Transdniester separatist region.
Cocii confirmed in a phone call with RFE/RL that he traveled to France and recently returned to Transdniester, but he did not admit that he had been detained.
RFE/RL used open-source data and Cocii’s posts on social media to establish that he was born on June 22, 1990. The information matches that released on November 7 by French police, who said that they had detained a Moldovan couple — a man born in June 1990 and a woman born in December 1994.
Cocii also appears to have taken part in a demonstration in October 2022 in support of the Shor party in Chisinau, according to photos taken of the march.
After preliminary investigations, the couple detained in Paris was allowed to return to Moldova. No charges have been filed against them. French authorities suspect that another Moldovan couple participated in painting the symbols in what was interpreted as an anti-Semitic act.
French prosecutors said in October that CCTV footage purportedly showed a man and a woman spray-painting the stars on walls while a third person was taking pictures. That couple fled France.
French prosecutors said that another couple, identified as Moldovan and staying in France illegally, was arrested on October 27 after being caught spray-painting a Star of David on a wall in Paris.
“They declared they were acting under orders from a third person and for remuneration,” the French prosecutors said in a statement, adding that it was suspected that both couples were being coordinated by the same third person or party.
The Moldovan police statement issued earlier on November 29 said they had identified an individual who had previously been involved in “hooliganism and actions meant to destabilize” Moldova that had been “directed by the Shor crime group.”
Shor, a fugitive Moldovan oligarch implicated in a $1 billion bank fraud and other illicit schemes, organized months of anti-government protests in Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, with the aim of toppling pro-Western President Maia Sandu and a new reformist government appointed in February.
“Based on our analysis, the French action was organized and directed from abroad and was meant as an attempt at staining Moldova’s image abroad,” said the Moldovan police statement, which included a photo of the alleged perpetrator.
French journalists have reported that the man behind the painting of the Stars of David was Anatoli Prizenco, a 48-year-old businessman from Transdniester.
Prizrenco admitted in a call with RFE/RL that he recruited the Moldovans who painted the stars, but said he did so at the request of a Jewish group and that the goal of the action was not an anti-Semitic manifestation, but one of support for the Jewish community amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
Cocii admitted to RFE/RL that he knows Prizenco but declined to confirm whether he was among the Moldovans recruited by him to draw Jewish symbols in Paris.
