TWO MONTHS AFTER THE FRAUD IN DEVA HAS BEEN EXPOSED Almost 400 victims of the "Broker" Cluj fraud are waiting for the authorities to get back to them

• The joint lawsuit of the victims died in its infancy

Ştefania Ciocîrlan

Two weeks after the scandal concerning the Deva branch of "Broker" Cluj, where the head of the Branch is accused of having received money from the company"s customers using forged receipts, around 400 defrauded investors are still waiting for the authorities to get in touch with them and to do them justice by helping them recover their stolen money.

Meanwhile, the initiative of a group of some 70 investors for a joint lawsuit against "Broker" Cluj has not yielded any concrete results, as they do not yet have a lawyer to represent them in court.

"After the file containing our complaints was sent to DIICOT (Department to Counter International Organized Criminality and Terrorism ed. note) Hunedoara, we were told that we would be contacted separately, so we can each make statements individually", one of the defrauded investors, who wished to remain anonymous, stated for our newspaper.

"Thing is, nothing has been done so far to solve this case because no one contacted us, even though what happened in Deva is obviously theft", the investor said.

According to him, some of the company"s customers that were defrauded in Deva have met at the end of January to put together a common strategy for a lawsuit against the brokerage firm. However, this project quickly hit legal and financial obstacles.

"I"ve met with about 70 other investors, we have made a list of all the victims and we have tried to start a collective lawsuit so we can recover the money that was stolen from us", our source said. According to him, the investors talked to a lawyer who subsequently refused to take their case, saying that a civil lawsuit could take at least two years.

"The lawyer told us that the criminal lawsuit has begun, and that it has priority over the civil lawsuit and he advised us to wait", our source added.

Cristian Duţescu, lawyer specializing in the capital market, said that he was contacted by approximately 30 investors victims of the Deva scam to represent them in court. He said that he did not conclude all the formalities needed for this, as he is waiting for the victims to provide to him with the needed documents.

The irregularities at the Deva branch of "Broker" Cluj came out at the end of January, when the National Securities Commission decided to suspend the operations of the brokerage company for two weeks and initiated an investigation. The main charge against the head of the Deva branch of is the defrauding of the company"s clients by issuing forged receipts.

The investigation was subsequently taken over by DIICOT-Hunedoara and is currently under way.

Recently, officials of the National Securities Commission (CNVM) stated for Bursa, that they have completed the investigation of "Broker" Cluj two weeks ago, with the company"s officials to send their own observations on the investigation report. The deadline by which the management of "Broker" could file their comments expired last Friday.