Four former members of Rompetrol management, two of whom are citizens of Kazakhstan, have been sent to court by DIICOT prosecutors for tax evasion, accused of creating two fictitious schemes through which they caused losses to the state of more than 37 million lei (over 7.4 million ). euro). In the case of 58 persons, the investigation was terminated on the grounds that the facts were delayed by the May decision of the Constitutional Court.

DIICOT announced on Friday that two Romanian nationals and two Kazakh nationals who were part of an oil company operating in Romania were referred to court for tax evasion in the case.

According to the prosecutor’s office, in the period from January 2010 to October 2013, the three defendants, together with other persons, created, respectively supported, a criminal group organized for the purpose of committing crimes related to abuse of influence, tax evasion and money laundering.

• “In order to obtain the sums of money obtained from the commission of the crime of trading in influence (which consists in demanding sums of money for the maintenance or payment of contracts, the development of favorable terms or the conclusion of new contracts by beneficiary companies from the oil industry group), two fictitious trading schemes were created (developed around a common core of companies/individuals).
• Thus, in order to hide the true origin of the transferred funds, the members of the organized crime group determined the registration in the accounting records of commercial companies-beneficiaries of some unreal expenses (fictitious contracts for the provision of services, commission/intermediary operations, unreal purchases, etc.), which led to the distortion (reduction) of the taxable amount (by reflecting fictitious costs in accounting) with the consequence of evading payment of some fees and taxes to the state budget.
• After receiving the sums of money, they were subjected to a large-scale laundering process using “suveica”-type financial schemes, at the end of which the “cascaded” sums were divided and then withdrawn in cash or transferred to external bank accounts in order to gain an undue advantage (the total sum subjected to the process laundering, is 87,125,818.80 lei)”, DIICOT notes.

In this case, the Ministry of Public Finance – National Agency of Fiscal Administration was recognized as a civil claim with the amount of 39,457,199.22 lei.

During the investigation of the criminal proceedings, a total of 19,180,278 lei was recovered from the total amount of damage caused to the state budget by the evasion scheme, in the final amount of 37,946,779 lei (through direct payments to the account of the State Treasury or through compensation of fiscal obligations).

DIICOT asked to maintain the preventive measures chosen for the accused sent to court and to order them to pay court costs of 360,000 lei.

The prosecutor’s office decided to terminate and continue the investigation in the case of the accused, who is currently in the territory of Russia, and he failed to report the final legal qualification of his accusation.

DIICOT also reports that it decided to close the proceedings against 32 accused of the crimes of creating an organized crime group, tax evasion and money laundering, as well as against another 26 accused of abuse of influence and abuse of influence, based on the law. restrictions as a result of the May decision of the Constitutional Court.

According to DIICOT, during the criminal investigation, the six defendants, whose case was ordered to be confidential, paid court costs related to the criminal investigation in the amount of 180,000 lei.

The case was transferred to the Bucharest Court.