High-profile corruption cases in Romania

A highly profitable sector, the oil industry has always been connected to big corruption cases, and Romania is no exception.

Bogdan Matei, 08.10.2014, 13:27

Following what is now a classic scenario, a new chapter of the Romanian anti-corruption campaign was written on Tuesday. At the end of an eight-year trial, several heavyweights of the Romanian political, economic and media scene were put behind bars, following a final ruling from the Bucharest Court of Appeal. Eight people were sent to prison and four others received suspended sentences.

One of them is the former Liberal senator, Sorin Rosca Stanescu, over his involvement in the Rompetrol case. His conviction cost him his MP seat and his National Liberal Party membership. One of the most influential journalists in post-communist Romania, an investigative journalist and later editor-in chief, Rosca Stanescu has been, in keeping with his right-wing values, a staunch supporter of capitalism, anti-communism and moderate nationalism. However, his collaboration with the former political police, the Securitate, and his involvement in media campaigns suspected of being used as a blackmail tool, have won him a doubtful reputation. He is now serving a 26-month prison sentence for using confidential information and setting up an organised crime group.

A former Liberal minister in the 1990s and later a member of the small Conservative Party, Sorin Pantis has received 2 years and 8 months in prison for complicity to market manipulation. He is already serving time in prison for his involvement in another corruption case.

The former deputy chairman of Rompetrol Holland, Alexandru Bucsa, received by far the toughest sentence — six years behind bars for complicity to embezzlement and money laundering.

The mastermind of the whole scheme, the famous businessman Dinu Patriciu died in August in a London hospital. In his case, prosecutors had asked for 20-year prison sentence. One of the richest people in Romania, Patriciu was the main sponsor of the National Liberal Party and was believed to have dictated some of the party’s most important decisions. Styling himself as a generous philanthropist, he appears nevertheless to have always used somebody else’s money. According to anti-corruption prosecutors, with the complicity of other people indicted in the case, Patriciu laid his hands on around 85 million dollars between 1999 and 2001, money which should have gone to the state budget.

Prosecutors also say that in 2004 he manipulated the trading of shares on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Following the Court’s ruling, Rompetrol, one of Romania’s most important hydrocarbon companies, which was held at the time by Dinu Patriciu, has to give back to the Romanian state tens of millions of dollars.

In another case related to the local oil industry, the Petrotel oil refinery in Ploiesti, southern Romania, owned by the Russian giant Lukoil, had its accounts blocked for a few days, following its involvement in a fiscal evasion and money-laundering case, which allegedly cost the state budget 230 million euros. Investigations in this case are under way.