The godfathers of the customs

Aurel Mătiuţ ensured the "protection" of the cigarette contraband hidden in the vehicles of the companies his father owns: Euro Expediţii SRL Arad, MLR Spedition Company SRL and Relmar Company SRL (the last two headquartered in Chişineu-Criş), by directing the control teams of the customs away from the vehicles which crossed the border through the Curtici Free Area. The cut of Mătiuţ was about 50,000 Euros a month, as well as from the protection of the office of Distribution General Value SRL Bucureşti in the Moraviţa customs, which transports unstamped cigarettes to the EU countries.

The Năidaş Customs Office

For about two years, millions and millions of cigarette cartons have been going through the "duty-free" shop of Năidaş, owned by Euro Trade Invest SA Poşta Câlnău (Buzău), under the protection of the customs officers, who have thus deprived the state budget of about 100 million Euros.

The officers have made about 5-6 million Euros, which they split like brothers, among themselves, while also giving their bosses their cut:

- Customs inspector Gheorghe I. Verdeţ would regularly "forget" to write the reports on the cigarettes that were seized and would then sell them through his friends (with main customs inspector Claudiu Iorgovan doing the same). Verdeţ persuaded several smugglers operating in the Năidaş Customs to buy cigarettes from the "duty-free" shop owned by SC Euro Trade Invest SA, which it would then sell on the domestic market, and be paid the net profit from this operation. In exchange for this service, Verdeţ promised the smugglers (for a certain period of time) to illegally bring tens of boxes of cigarettes into the country for them, without any other commissions.

- Customs inspector Dalibor Iovanovici sets up the control teams in such a manner as to protect the cigarette smuggler, but also dabbles into contraband himself, using the very car of the National Customs Authority to supply the stores of his father Sretco Iovanovici (owned by the company Balcan SRL Moldova Nouă) with cigarettes originating from the duty-free shop of the Customs office of Naidăş-Moldova Veche. They made 1,000 Euros/shipment.

- Customs inspector Florinel Geo Dărac instructs his subordinates that worked during his shifts to buy cigarettes from the duty-free shop of SC Euro Trade Invest SA, which were sold illegally. With the money he makes, starting February 2010, with the help of his brother-in-law, Gheorghe D. Verdeţ (the head of the Intervention Teams of the Timişoara Regional Department of the Timişoara Customs), Dărac tried to bribe the head of the National Customs Authority Radu Traian Mărginean, to appoint him as the head of the Moraviţa Customs Point.

- Customs inspector Camelia Mihăilă (married to Cristinel Mihăilă, prime-prosecutor of the with the Court of Oraviţa) is bribed by smugglers to allow them to bring in large volumes of cigarettes through the duty-free located in the Naidăş customs.

- Customs controller Maria Ranga and inspector Claudiu Bojidar Barbuli tip off smugglers on the timing of the scheduled checks, so they can smuggle cigarettes dinto the country in-between.