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The Florin Cîțu scandal, a VENGEANCE for the mega-file Murfatlar?
One of the advisers of Prime Minister Ludovic Orban, Virgil Guran, declared on Saturday, on Antena 3, that the Prime Minister ordered the verification of the accusations brought against the Minister of Finance, Florin Cîțu. Cîțu was accused of disbanding a department in the ministry that was to be tried with his parents. In his statements, Virgil Guran slipped in an incendiary scenario: everything was actually related to a resounding case and Florin Cîțu was the victim of a settlement of accounts.
"Related to revenge, it is the Murfatlar case and there are people with important positions in ANAF ... measures have been taken and it seems that ...", said the adviser of the prime minister Ludovic Orban.
In 2016, DNA indicted Murfatlar SA and eight other companies for tax evasion of approximately 500 million lei. Prosecutors say it all happened with the support of eight heads of the Ministry of Public Finance and ANAF. For two years nothing has been heard of this file. At the beginning of this year, however, after the PNL came to power, things started to move.
In January, judicial sources told STIRIPESURSE that DNA prosecutors investigating the "Murfatlar" economic mega-file had recently received financial-accounting expertise in the case. The case has stagnated at DNA in the last two years, amid the fact that the case prosecutors ordered several expertises, including the recently arrived one, the financial-accounting one.
File of 500 million lei seizure
In February 2017, the DNA prosecutors ordered, in the "Murfatlar" case, the measure of the insurance seizure on some goods, lands and factories for the production of alcoholic beverages up to the amount of approximately 500 million lei.
According to DNA, the precautionary measure targets goods, land and three factories for the production of alcoholic beverages belonging to the defendants Murfatlar Romania SA, Euroavipo SA, Bartenders Distilleries SRL, IG Surveillance Company SRL, Hecta Viticol SRL and General Gas Management SRL.
The factories are in Prahova, Buzau and Constanta.
On November 11, 2016, DNA stated in a statement that anti-corruption prosecutors had charged, until then, 41 people (businessmen and officials from the Ministry of Finance and ANAF) and 9 companies in the case of tax evasion from Murfatlar, in which the damage amounts to 600 million lei through fraud in the field of production and sale of alcoholic beverages.
Accusation charges
The charges are of abuse of office if the civil servant has obtained for himself or for another an undue benefit, tax evasion and offenses related to tax evasion offenses.
According to the communiqué, 9 legal persons were charged in the case, for tax evasion offenses and crimes related to tax evasion offenses, respectively SC Murfatlar Romania SA, SC Euroavipo SA, SC Bartenders Distilleries SRL, SC Visteria Industries SRL, SC Oana Management SRL, SC The Supervisory Company IG SRL, SC General Gas Management SRL, SC Dante's Management SRL and SC Hecta Viticol SRL.
The prosecutors' ordinances show that there are data and evidence from which it results that, in the period 2010 - 2014, the companies Murfatlar Romania SA, Euroavipo SA and Bartenders Distilleries SRL, with activity of production and sale of alcoholic beverages, with the help of other mentioned companies, all companies owned, managed or actually controlled by the defendants George Ivănescu, Cătălin Bucura, Gheorghe Zlotea, Constantin Cîrciumaru, Gheorghe Cosmin Popescu, Cătălin Florian Vasilescu and Sorin Vasile Săvoiu, caused a total damage of 597,218,168 lei (approximately 132 million euros ) the state budget by evading the payment of fiscal obligations.
Investigators claim that the criminal activity took place in the conditions in which certain civil servants within the competent fiscal and customs authorities either did not perform the acts to which they were obliged by their duties, or performed such acts in a defective manner.
"Spiritual" deeds
The causes of this damage, identified in this file, are: the authorization, in violation of the legal provisions, of three fiscal warehouses for the production of alcohol and alcoholic beverages owned by companies; evading the payment of value added tax on excise duties and other fiscal obligations by registering fictitious operations, which increased the deductible tax; the indulgence of civil servants who did not fulfill the acts to which they were obliged and did not order the measures provided by law to stop the activity of warehouses, although the companies registered monthly outstanding fiscal obligations, and their amount increased constantly.
All on "free"
In October 2016, George Ivănescu, a shareholder in the Murfatlar wine company, as well as shareholders or administrators in alcoholic beverage companies were arrested: Constantin Cîrciumaru, Cătălin Bucura, Gheorghe Zlotea, Gheorghe Cosmin Popescu, Cătălin Florian Vasilescu and Sorin Vasile Săvoiu.
At the same time, Cristian George Lascu, former director of the Customs and Non-Fiscal Policy Department of the Ministry of Finance, was placed under house arrest; Irina Tănase, former head of the Authorizations Directorate within the National Customs Authority, and Ioan Toma, former general director of the General Legal Directorate within ANAF.
At the same time, several directors from the Ministry of Public Finance and ANAF are being prosecuted, as well as the former Secretary of State Mariana Vizoli and the head of Antifraud, Daniel Diaconescu.
In the two years of conducting the huge expertise in the case, all the defendants were released along the way.