 In November 2014, Moldova's central bank took control of "Banca de Economii", the country's largest lender, and two smaller institutions, "Banca Sociala" and "Unibank".Investigations into activities at these three banks uncovered a large-scale fraud by means of fraudulent loans to business entities controlled by a Moldovan-Israeli business oligarch, Ilan Shor, of funds worth about 1 billion U.S. dollars.The large scale of the fraud compared to the size of the Moldovan economy are cited as tilting the country's politics in favour of the pro-Russian Party of Socialists of the Republic of Moldova.