The director of the project management department for the modernization of the school and university network under the Ministry of Education, Horia Palmer-Hirtopanu, was arrested after being detained by the DNA for bribery and money laundering. According to the prosecutor’s office, he should have received approximately 340,000 euros in bribes from the company’s administrator in exchange for instructions and execution of some contracts for the construction of kindergartens.

DNA announced on Thursday that prosecutors from the Territorial Service of Brasov ordered the opening of a criminal investigation and the 24-hour detention of Horia Palmer-Hirtopana, director of the ministry’s school and university network modernization project management department. education, for bribery and money laundering, both in extended form.

Also, the administrator of the enterprise and a person without a special status were placed under judicial control for 60 days for crimes in the form of bribery, fictitious transfer of shares of a company or a share of a commercial company for the purpose of evading criminal prosecution or preventing it, respectively, money laundering.

On Thursday, the Brasov court accepted DNA’s proposal for the preventive arrest of the director of the Ministry of Education for 30 days.

What DNA prosecutors say:

• “During the years 2017-2020, as a director of the said structure, Horia Palmer-Hirtopanu demanded and received sums of money and other illegal benefits totaling approximately EUR 340,000 and 18,749 lei from the company administrator, the co-accused, in exchange for an award and for successful execution of some contracts related to the construction of kindergartens within the framework of the Early Education Reform Project in Romania.
• Part of the benefit received by Palmer-Hirtopanu as a bribe would consist of the drilling of a well and the construction of a water supply facility, which were carried out in the yard of his house, located in a city in the immediate vicinity of the capital.
• Also, in the period 2016-April 2021, he would have received significant sums of money as a result of the commission of corruption crimes, from which, through various banking transactions, he would have introduced into legal financial circulation the sums of approximately 179,676 euros and 191,900 lei, used to purchase various goods (two real estate and two luxury cars), some in the name of close people. This is for the purpose of concealing and disguising the illegal origin of the sums of money for which they were purchased, as well as the subject of their ownership.”