THE ASF CLAIMS THAT THE THEFT OF THE SHARES OF THE HEAD OF IFC ROMANIA iS AN ISOLATED CASE Thefts, as in "more than one": Another theft of shares

A new case of theft of shares, similar to the one which the head of IFC Romania, Ana Maria Mihăescu fell victim to, was reported to us by a reader, which would show that on the Romanian stock market, such "events" are not isolated, even though the representatives of the Financial Supervision Authority (ASF) told us, last week, that they have not identified any situations similar to that of the head of the IFC mission in Romania.

Mr. Gheorghe Palade told us that, in the beginning of May, he was notified by mail by Intercapital Invest that his shares which were stored at the Central Depository on the first section, were sold, an operation which was conducted without his having issued a sell order. The amount resulting from the sale of the shares was deposited in a Bucharest agency of Millennium Bank, based on a fake ID, said Mr. Palade. The loss amounts to 52,000 lei, according to him.

He told us that in the beginning, on April 14th, he was contacted by phone by an employee of the Gorjului agency of ING Bank Bucharest to pick up a debit card which he had allegedly asked for. Due to the persistence of the ING employee, Gheorghe Palade went to the agency in question, on April 26th, and found that request for the card had been made in his name by an individual who had a card with the same identification data (date of birth, Personal Numeric Code and address) as his, the only difference being the photograph. "As a result, I have warned the employees of the branch of ING that they were dealing with a serious case of identity theft and I have asked for criminal investigations to be initiated, in order to find the identity of the author of the forgery and fraud", said Mr. Palade, who said that he has filed notifications concerning the attempted theft with the Police Inspectorate of the Prahova County, which is in charge of his area of residence, and with Police Precinct 21, which is in charge of the area in which the ING branch is located.

The representatives of ING Romania have confirmed that the notification from Mr. Gheorghe Palade was received and logged, and they added that he has received a notification from the bank, by which he was advised to contact the institutions of the state, and that they have also responded to the Romanian Police, following a request for information from the latter.

Gheorghe Palade told us that, following the actual theft which happened in May, on May 7th he filed notifications with the General Police Inspectorate of Bucharest (IGP), the ASF, the Central Depository, Intercapital Invest and Millennium Bank, but he has not received any response so far.

Last week, the officials of Police Precinct 21 of Bucharest told him that the agent in charge of his case, had not yet viewed the recording of the individual that had asked for the issue of the card from ING Bank, due to being busy.

The representatives of the Central Depository (DC) told us that they have informed the competent authorities about the notice submitted by Gheorghe Palade, as well as sent him a response concerning his notification, but they are unable to provide further details about this case, because certain aspects of the case are beyond its ability to investigate. "The Central Depository does keep track of the amounts resulting from the sale of securities, as trading the securities recorded in our system is not part of our line of business, which is why we are not competent to discuss any potential amounts obtained from the sale of securities or the sale of said securities without the agreement of their owners, which is a matter for the competent institutions", the Central Depository states in its response.

The enquiries and the notifications which the depository receives from the shareholders of the issuer companies either get solved according to its own competences (by conducting the operations requested in compliance with the afferent regulations, sending a response, etc.), or they are forwarded to other authorities/legal entities habilitated to solve this kind of requests, depending on the object of the addressed notices, the officials of the Central Depository told us.

The officials of the ASF told us that, following the verifications made, they have not yet found any notification addressed to the ASF by Gheorghe Palade, concerning the theft of the amount of 52,000 lei.

Contacted by BURSA, the officials of Millennium Bank refused to make any statement about this case.

The officials of the General Police Inspectorate of Bucharest and Intercapital Invest did not respond by the time the newspaper went to print.

Last Thursday, BURSA published the news that shares worth 200,000 Euros were stolen from the brokerage account of the head of IFC Romania, Ana Maria Mihăescu, also using a fake ID. The information was later reported by the rest of the press.

The private pensions arm of the ASF has decided, last week, to bar the private pension funds from making stock trades on Friday and yesterday, in order to review their portfolios, a measure which it described as "preventive" and which seems to be connected to the case reported by BURSA.