SIS Director reveals details on Alexandru Bălan’s espionage activities

Former deputy director of the Intelligence and Security Service (SIS) Alexandru Bălan, who was detained in Romania and extradited to the Republic of Moldova is believed to have cooperated with foreign intelligence services even while he was in office. SIS director Alexandru Musteață made the statement at a TV show.

According to the SIS chief, the institution is currently analyzing the impact of Bălan’s activities, and the information to which he had access is treated as compromised.

“ This process is happening even now, my colleagues are working in the office,” Musteață said.

The SIS director labeled the former deputy as a “traitor,” noting that he had not held any position within the institution since 2019 and no longer had access to classified information. Subsequently, he was suspended from his officer status, and in 2023, following internal investigations, he was permanently dismissed without receiving a special pension.

“Alexandru Bălan is a traitor who, since 2019, has not held any position within the service and no longer has access to classified information within SIS. Later, he was suspended from his officer status, and since 2023, after a series of internal investigations, he was definitively dismissed from the service. His contract was terminated permanently, without granting the special pension he was aiming for. A traitor who, through the way he presented himself and carried out certain actions, raised a series of doubts within the service as early as 2022–2023, when we began internal investigations. Once we had gathered sufficient evidence to dismiss him, he was dismissed, but SIS’s activity did not stop there. We continued our work within a counterintelligence case, quite closed, secret in its mode of management,” Musteață said.

According to Musteață, Bălan’s contacts with the services of another state were documented by a small team. The investigation lasted almost two years. In 2025, Moldovan authorities were also informed by external partners about Bălan’s connections with services in Belarus. Subsequently, the investigation was coordinated at the international level, with the involvement of authorities from Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Romania, under the aegis of Eurojust.

“He took off that morning from here, from Chișinău, we saw him, and he landed that morning in Bucharest, then in Timișoara, where he was detained by DIICOT prosecutors as part of the criminal case in Romania. That criminal case was at the center of the investigations to which the Republic of Moldova also contributed. There were searches at his home, in his personal car, devices were seized. The Republic of Moldova was part of the investigation that led to his detention,” Musteață noted.

The SIS chief emphasized that the investigation was complex, as Bălan is believed to have acted conspiratorially, taking measures to hide his activity. Alexandru Bălan had worked within SIS since the 2000s, climbing all the hierarchical steps. He had previously been suspended from the position of deputy director also in connection with another case involving abuse of office and illegal surveillance.

“Bălan was working for special services while in office and was already transmitting, accordingly, the entire set of information to which he had access. In one form or another, it is categorized by us as compromised information, and we are now assessing the impact of certain decisions of his, certain cases. This process is happening even now, my colleagues are working in the office,” the SIS director stressed.

Alexandru Bălan, former deputy director of SIS, was detained in Romania in 2025 following an international investigation into suspicions of espionage and treason, in which several European states participated. He was later extradited to the Republic of Moldova, pardoned by presidential decree, and released in exchange for two SIS employees detained in Russia who were facing severe prison sentences. 

Musteață pointed out that Bălan did not escape the criminal punishment in Romania, even though he was pardoned in the Republic of Moldova.