The money embezzled from Petrom Service was spent on "deontologists"

• Liviu Luca arrested together with Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu

• The damages caused are estimated at 83 million Euros

Liviu Luca and Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu were arrested yesterday for 24 hours, by prosecutors who will request their preventive arrest for embezzling funds from Petrom Service SA and money laundering, with the prejudice being estimated at more than 83 million Euros, which affected 72,000 members of the Association of Employees, who were deprived of dividends they would have received from the company, due to the fraudulent activities intended to reduce the value of the shares. Also arrested in connection with this case was businessman Octavian Ţurcan, with the judges expected to decide today whether the three defendants will be detained for 29 days.

According to the evidence presented so far, the controlled bankruptcy of Petrom Service S.A. has indirectly led to a loss of approximately 98 million Euros for the consolidated budget of the states.

Basically, through successive operations performed through several offshore companies, money belonging to Petrom Service S.A., was transferred to the personal or corporate accounts of several companies registered in Romania or abroad, in particular S.C. Realitatea Media S.A. (14,200,000 Euros), S.C. Imobiliar Network 2002 S.A. (6,725,000 Euro) and S.C. GM Invest S.A. (1,300,000 Euros).

Thus a significant chunk of the money belonging to Petrom Service were used to finance the media structures owned by Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu, as the unionists "sponsored" in such a manner countless deontologists, who can only be accused from a moral standpoint of not having had the curiosity to perform a serious investigation on this subject. There is also information that several journalists will also be summoned to appear before the prosecutors to issue statements pertaining to this case. Petrom Service, which has since then been renamed to PSV Company, entered insolvency in March 2009. At the time, the court appointed RVA Insolvency Specialists SPRL as the trustee in bankruptcy for PSV Company.

Also arrested in connection to this case, Liviu Luca enjoyed the confidence of the government not long ago. In October, at the proposal of the Romanian government, the European Economic and Social Council appointed Liviu Luca, leader of the CNSLR-Frăţia union, as a member until September 20th, 2015. Liviu Luca, who is also a first vice-president of CNSLR-Frăţia, was indicted on October 4th, by the anticorruption prosecutors concerning the signing of a management contract by a company owned by the union confederation with a company of Timişoara concerning the management of the assets of the union confederation. Also. Liviu Luca was heard in his position of witness by the prosecutors of the High Court of Cassation and Justice in the case of Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu concerning the aiding and abetting of Nicolae Popa. The name of Liviu Luca appearing in the investigation concerning the flight of Nicolae Popa - who was convicted in absentia to 15 years in prison for causing losses to 300,000 investors in the National Investment Fund (FNI) - is tied to a bank transfer using an account which he had a the right of signature.

This year, several of the cases against Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu were reopened. Thus the prosecutors" Office of the High Court of Cassation and Justice (ICCJ) has denied the decisions not to indict Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu in the briefs concerning the National Investment Fund (FNI), The Agricultural Bank, the Development and Industrial Bank (BID), as well in the case of the bankruptcy of the Romanian Discount Bank (BRS). Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu is also involved in a blackmail case, for which he was arrested by the prosecutors in April 2011. It is only on June 16th, that the Court of Bucharest has decided in a definitive ruling, that Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu would be tried without being detained in the case attempted blackmail against Sebastian Ghiţă. On the same day, Vîntu and his accomplice, Ion Ilie Cezar, were released from preventive custody. Over the past year, Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu was detained three times by the prosecutors, and in three of those cases judges ruled that he could be tried without being arrested.

• The circuit of the money

The prosecutors of the High Court of Cassation and Justice have sequestrated about 81 properties (around 46 tracts of land within and outside the built-up area, 5 apartments, hotels, restaurants, other commercial locations, an 8 storey block, cars, boats, bank accounts) in order to recoup the losses. The case has also included requests for legal assistance, including international legal assistance (rogatory commissions), whose findings were announced in October 2011. The findings of the rogatory commissions have revealed that so far, shares were resold after three days, and the price paid by SC Petromservice SA was over 50 times higher than the price paid initially. "Since the stock market price of a stock represents its market value, and that information is public and any interested person can acquire that title at that price, the difference between the price paid by SC Petromservice SA and the stock market value of the shares, amounting to 83,163,165 Euros, represents the prejudice caused to the company and, indirectly, to the minority shareholders, as well as to the consolidated state budget, as its creditor. The money was transferred through carousel type operations, and as part of those transactions the same amounts were recycled several times to give the impression of distinct transactions. Under these circumstances, the same amount was transferred five times through the accounts of the same companies, within a month, to leave the impression that five different payments were made", the supreme prosecutors" office says.

In September, two former directors of Petrom Service were indicted for embezzlement, together with three other individuals charged with money laundering. According to prosecutors, the five defendants caused the employees of Petrom to lose over 8.5 million Euros. The losses occurred after Gheorghe Şupeală, general manager, and Zizi Anaganstopol, CFO of SC Petrom Service SA, currently named SC PSV Company SA, have concluded three fictitious contracts with two companies owned by the other three defendants for conducting studies. The companies, represented by Laszlo Gyorgy Kiss and Mariana Iordăchescu, who are also defendants in the case, were paid 7,028,068 Euros, excluding VAT, in 2008. The contracts were intermediated by Ionuţ Adrian Eftime, who handled all the formalities, even though he held no positions within any of the companies in question", according to the prosecutors of the Supreme Court. Eftime, Kiss and Iordăchescu are on trial for money laundering. Investigators say that in order to conceal the sources of the money thus obtained and to be able to successfully transfer them outside Romania, "several transactions were performed, involving offshore companies, in which defendants Kiss Laszlo Gyorgy and Ionuţ Adrian Eftime were the true beneficiaries and which they controlled directly". According to the prosecutors of the High Court of Cassation And Justice, Ionuţ Adrian Eftime is the son of one of the right-hand men of Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu, Ion Eftime, who, as director of the Realitatea TV channel, is also being investigated for a tax evasion of 6.2 million lei. Prosecutors are trying to find out whether Vîntu is the end beneficiary of the eight million Euros laundered by Kiss with the help pf Eftime.