OVERVALUATIONS AMOUNTING TO MILLIONS OF EUROS, FOLLOWING THE RECIPE APPLIED BY ALINA BICA AND CRINUŢA DUMITREAN The president of the National Integrity Agency, arrested for the "plundering" of the ANRP

The evaluators that handled the retrocessions managed by the National Authority for the Restitution of Properties (ANRP) made mistakes in their calculations amounting to tens of millions of Euros, and the case of Alina Bica, who was arrested last autumn, for overvaluing a property by 62 million Euros, was apparently no accident at all.

It seems that Horia Georgescu, current president of the National Integrity Agency (ANI), and Ingrid Zaarour, former head of the ANRP between 2007 and 2009 followed the same recipe, according to the prosecutors.

Horia Georgescu was arrested yesterday by the National Anticorruption Department, (DNA), which is proposing he be placed in preventive custody, being charged with approving the payment of overvalued compensations by 75 million Euros, at the time when he was the member of the Central Commission for setting the compensation, as part of the National Authority for the Restitution of Properties (ANRP).

In the same case, Ingrid Zaarour is being investigated on conditional release.

The lawyer of Horia Georgescu, Cristian Ene, said that it was not within the job description of Mr. Georgescu to assess the properties.

"We all know that at the ANRP the amounts were very high", he said: "It wasn't an amount that drew attention from that point of view, it was the evaluators that were qualified to set the value of the properties".

After the arrest of the former head of the DIICOT, Alina Bica, the president of the ANRP who resigned, George Băeşu, said that more than half of the shares in the Proprietatea Fund have been issued to people who either didn't deserve them, or as a result of the inflated valuations, which means a fraud of approximately 1.5-2 billion Euros.

Adrian Iuraşcu, vice-president of the PNL, who has long coordinated the property owner associations that were seeking compensations, told us: "Finally, the pillaging of the ANRP is being brought to light".

According to him, the PNL will conduct an audit of the activity of the ANRP, as in his opinion, the activity of the institution between 2008 and 2011 should be audited as well, not just that carried out between December 2012 and 2015.

"When will an audit be performed for the period when Mrs. Anca Opre was president, which nobody talks about?", Mr. Iuraşcu asks.

He also told us: "Small property owners, who were entitled to receive small amounts and who were truly sick, received nothing, while others, who were «fake patients», were awarded compensations.

Those in the wrong must pay. But still, I don't think we are dealing with mistakes, but with intent, given that those who bought ownership rights in dispute profited, and the rightful owners didn't. We are now talking about 100 million Euros for one man.

This is by far the biggest case of corruption in Romania".

Adrian Iuraşcu is referring to the press release of the Government issued Sunday, by which the Executive announced that it would file a notice with the National Anti-Corruption Department (DNA) and the Court of Auditors about the resolution of certain cases which concerned the restitution of properties between 2008-2011. The Audit Body of the Government found that certain cases of paranoia, lumbar sciatica, osteoporosis, psoriasis etc received preferential treatment and were resolved with priority.

Adrian Iuraşcu reminds of the fact that since back in 2011, he has asked for the list of compensation rights transferees, because in his opinion they were required to pay taxes to the ANAF, because according to the law only the rightful owners were exempt from taxes.

He told us: "The ANAF should have checked whether the individuals in question could justify their revenues and also whether they had paid taxes. According to our calculations, 100 million Euros in taxes were owed. People dealing in property certificates would buy them for 1 leu and sell them for 100 and since they were not the rightful owners, they should have paid taxes on the difference".

Adrian Iuraşcu is saying that former property owners have constantly asked to have members on the ANRP commissions, to be able to see what they were doing: "This impertinence must end in Romania. The lack of transparency has led to this huge level of corruption".

• Horia Georgescu, charged with three counts of abuse in office

The anti-corruption prosecutors allege that Horia Georgescu is guilty of three counts of abuse in office, with extremely serious consequences, if the public servant has obtained undue benefits for themselves or for third parties.

The DNA states that according to the evaluation experts, the total valuation of the properties was 129,709,168 Euros (467,448,907 lei).

The prosecutors state: "The Central Commission for the Setting of Compensations has issued compensation claims in the three cases based on evaluation reports that did not comply with the requirements of the International Evaluation Standards pertaining to estimating the market value of the properties, nor the provisions of art. 10 paragraph 6 and 7 of the Law no. 247/2005, concerning the reform in the property and justice sector, as well as some adjacent measures, by overvaluing the properties in question by approximately 75,000,000 Euros, amount which was lost by the state budget, and was instead unduly paid to the titleholders and assignees of the compensation rights".

Horia Georgescu was removed from the headquarters of the DNA with the hands handcuffed behind his back and was placed into a car which took him to the arrest of the Bucharest Police Department.

When asked whether he took money in exchange for restituting properties at overvalued prices, the president of the ANI responded: "Never".

Also brought over to the DNA with a warrant yesterday, was PNL deputy PNL Theodor Cătălin Nicolescu, the vice-president of the judiciary commission of the Chamber of Deputies.

In this case, Ingrid Zaarour, former head of the ANRP is being charged with abuse in office, according to sources quoted by Mediafax.

Ingrid Zaarour was the first vice-president of the ANRP, and her term was interrupted between 2005 and 2009, when she was replaced by Ancuţa Gianina Opre, advisor to Mircea Geoană when he was the president of the PSD.

DNA prosecutors have also issued an arrest warrant for Ingrid Mocanu Popa, former vice-president of the ANRP.

The case was opened after the National Authority for the Restitution of Properties sent a notice to the National Anti-Corruption Department in January 2015, due to irregularities found following audits of property restitution applications, according to sources quoted by Mediafax.

Following a ruling of October 2013 of the Court of Accounts, the ANRP was ordered to reevaluate the cases in which compensations were awarded between 2009 and 2011.

At the time, the Court of Auditors ordered the president of the National Authority for the Restitution of Properties to check all evaluation reports used for the payment of compensations whose valuation exceeded 500,000 lei.

Based on the decision of the Court of Auditors and following the reevaluation of 452 applications it was found that in the case of 94 applications, the initial compensation was over 20% higher than the fair value.