Marta Chemencedji (Caracaș), the acting mayor of Taraclia, associated with Ilan Șor, claims she was not allowed to attend a meeting with a delegation from Bulgaria and the EU Ambassador to the Republic of Moldova, Iwona Piorko. On February 19, the head of the European Union Delegation, together with the Bulgarian ambassador Maya Dobreva, visited the local branch of the “Angel Kanchev” University of Ruse in Bulgaria, the “Vasil Levski” Youth Center, and the School of Arts for Children. The agenda of the meetings also included discussions with the mayors from the Taraclia district, according to Marta Caracaș.
The mayor posted a video on TikTok in which she reported that she was not admitted to the meeting. According to her, the vice-president of the district, Serghei Filipov, informed her that the Bulgarian side did not want Marta Caracaș to participate in the event.
“He said that the Bulgarian side insists that I should not be here. They will work without me. The meeting will not take place with me. I would like to mention that my place was marked. Then, the identification plate with my name, surname, and position was removed. When I asked why they don’t want to see me: The meeting is closed. The district administration did not include me in the guest list,” Marta Caracaș reported.
Following the resignation of Veaceslav Lupov, a representative of the “Șor” group, who left the Republic of Moldova and is in the Russian Federation, being targeted in a criminal case, Marta Chemencedji has been at the center of several controversies and investigations in recent months. The politician is considered one of the potential candidates for the position of mayor of the city of Taraclia in the early elections scheduled for May 2026 and would benefit from the support of local structures associated with Ilan Șor.
In the fall of 2025, the name of Marta Chemencedji (Caracaș) appeared in an investigation regarding the alleged coordination of a visit to Taraclia by a representative of the Russian Federation in the Republic of Moldova. At the same time, public information was circulated about the collection, during 2023-2024, of personal data from some residents of the district, under the pretext of opening accounts for the provision of “material aid”. The investigation suggests that this data could have been subsequently used in schemes of illegal financing and electoral influence through the Russian bank “Promsvyazbank”, involved in corrupting voters in Moldova.
In September 2025, searches took place at the home of Marta Chemencedji in the village of Cairaclia. Her brother, the mayor of the village of Cairaclia, Nicolai Caracaș, was detained for 72 hours, being indicated by the investigation as a person affiliated with the Șor group. Subsequently, the name of her husband was also mentioned in the materials of one of the criminal cases.
In this context, the decision of the organizers not to admit Marta Chemencedji to the meeting with the ambassadors of the European Union and Bulgaria takes on an additional political and reputational dimension.
