FIGHTING CONTRABAND Băsescu and Vîntu hunting each other

Two days ago, Traian Băsescu made some very interesting statements in an interview which appeared in the daily "România Liberă": "Union leaders were the most vocal when they spoke about deviation of trust, accompanied by the media groups owned by Vîntu and Voiculescu. There"s something rotten here, I can"t quite put my finger on it, but it is obvious that their outbursts, which are trying to point fingers to the political area, are an attempt to cover something up. (...) I am afraid that the queen of the contraband is among the union leaders, but proving that will depend on whether those who are arrested will admit it". Lately it"s been said that there is a structure of the smugglers, like a "chessboard" where a queen controls all the mobs of the customs.

In the hallway of the courthouse where he was being heard in the lawsuit in which he is being tried for aiding and abetting Nicolae Popa: "This lawsuit has nothing to do with justice and it is just the consequence of my direct fight with the Traian Băsescu regime. He started a hunt against me using all the means of repression at his disposal. Starting today, I have begun the hunt against him and those who support him".

Also yesterday, Marius Ungureanu, the former head of the customs of Giurgiu, said in a press conference that between 1997 and 2002, he would pay Vasile Marica, the leader of the Sed Lex union, 2,000 - 2,500 dollars a month. Ungureanu was extremely precise in his accusations against the union leader: "Over the course of 15 years, Marica blackmailed every head of the National Customs Authority, regardless of their political affiliation. Having his people in all the border crossing points, he knew everything that was going on and he had the power to threaten everyone that he would call take the unionists out to the streets. In 1996 I met Vasile Marica, who at the time was saying that he had influence and power in the National Customs Authority. Between 1997 and 2002 I would pay him 2,000 to 2,500 dollars a month. Marica set up, organized and is the main beneficiary of this system. People don"t want to talk bout all this, because they are afraid of the consequences. This is what Marica is banking on when he is presenting himself as a righter of wrongs... He is collecting bribes through proxies. In 2001, in an action of the Giurgiu Division of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), made by an officer named Crăciunescu Şerban and a customs employee - Dan Voinea -, in ad hoc meeting that they held during the shift of Cristoi Robert, the former used a recorder to tape Cristoi Robert stating that he wanted more money, and therefore the customs officers should pay more. That recording has been with SRI Giurgiu since 2001, but nobody did anything about it". Ungureanu also claims that he paid 5,000 dollars to the leader of Sed Lex, to allow him to buy his university degree.

In an intervention with Realitatea TV, Vasile Marica gave his position on the statements of Marius Ungureanu: "I know him very well, he was one of the greatest cigarette smugglers. He tried to contact me several times, and he was eventually fired by Nini Săpunaru (former head of the National Customs Authority). He blames me for his arrest. I won"t accept a former convict accusing me of corruption. He has no proof to back his claims about me. He will have to answer for what is happening. He would have liked to continue working as head of customs and stealing, but he got fired and I refused to help him".

It needs to be added that Ungureanu is not the only one bringing such accusations against Vasile Marica. The head of the National Union of Policemen and Customs Workers - "Pro Lex", Vasile Lincu, said that "Mr. Marica is a crucial gear of the diabolical machinery covering tax evasion".

Vasile Marica asked the two to come with evidence, saying that he would take them to court otherwise.