Last May, undercover OCCRP journalists, in partnership with RISE Moldova, captured audio and video of Druta offering to deliver a large shipment of weapons to Ukraine. The journalists first arranged a smaller transaction, in which Druta sold them an anti-tank grenade launcher and a semi-automatic pistol. In the recording, Druta says that the weapons came from the Russian military base in Transnistria, a Russian-speaking breakaway region of Moldova that borders Ukraine.
This transaction occurred during the height of the Ukraine conflict, after clashes in Odessa that left 40 people dead.
