Former PSD minister Darius Valkov, who was finally sentenced to six years in prison and fled to Italy, will be brought to Romania on Monday afternoon, judicial sources told HotNews.ro. Vilkov is the first known fugitive that the Romanian authorities managed to remove from Italy, where Mario Iorgulescu, Alina Bica, former SRI officer Daniel Dragomir or businessman Dragos Savulescu have taken refuge to avoid prison.

According to the quoted sources, Valtsov will be brought to the country under escort by a regular flight.

• Why Italy is a haven for Romanian refugees

Italy’s Supreme Court of Cassation on August 8 rejected an appeal filed by Darius Valkov, the former mayor of the municipality of Slatin and minister of finance, against the decision to hand him over to Romanian authorities.

In May, three weeks after being convicted in Romania, Darius Valkov surrendered to the authorities in Naples, and an international arrest warrant was issued in his name.

Romanian authorities had information that the former Romanian official would be in the Milan area where he had opened a business, but he chose the south of Italy to surrender.

Six years of imprisonment

On May 2, 2023, Darius Valkov was finally sentenced by the Supreme Court to six years in prison in a case in which he was referred to court in May 2015 and in which he was sentenced at first instance to eight years in prison.

In this case, in February 2018, a three-judge panel of the Supreme Court sentenced Darius Valkov to eight years in prison with execution. The trial was suspended for almost two and a half years.

In 2015, Valtsov was sent to court in this case. During the searches, prosecutors found a real treasure – more than 1.3 million lei, 90 thousand euros, three gold bars weighing three kilograms and three paintings with inscriptions by Renoir, Jean Cocteau and Aurel Acassandri, respectively.

In total, 172 paintings purchased by Valkov through intermediaries were discovered during the searches, some of them were hidden in false walls of buildings belonging to the former minister.

The Supreme Court of Cassation and Justice decided to partially cancel the decision of the first instance and to reduce the sentence in the form of 8 years of imprisonment to the components: 3 years of imprisonment for abuse of influence, 5 years of imprisonment for money laundering.

“(…) Consolidate the punishments established by this decision and apply to the accused Valtsov Daria Bohdan the most severe punishment, 5 years of imprisonment, to which he adds an increase of 1 year of imprisonment, which is a third of the total amount. the other 3 years in prison, this is going to carry out, in the end, a sentence of 6 years in prison.”

For the crime related to the implementation of financial transactions incompatible with the position, the facts of the statute of limitations.

The magistrates upheld the decision to confiscate the sum of 6.2 million lei from Valkov.

Minel Prina, the former mayor of the municipality of Slatin, was sentenced to 4 years and 6 months in prison by firing squad, and Lucian Petruc Shusala, the former driver of Darius Valkov, to 2 years suspended with a 5-year supervision period. Petre Bohdan Timofte was sentenced to 3 years by firing squad, and Konstantin Tomescu was sentenced to 3 years and 6 months by firing squad.

What are the charges against Valkova by DNA in this case

In this case, Darius Valkov was referred to the court for abuse of influence, money laundering, carrying out financial transactions as commercial actions incompatible with the function, powers or commissions performed by a person, or concluding financial transactions using information obtained by virtue of his function. attribution or assignment, in continuous form.

Together with Valkov, Lucian Petrut Shusal (former driver of Darius Valkov), Minela Prina, former mayor of the municipality of Slatin, Petre Bohdan Timofte and Konstantin Tomescu were tried.

According to DNA, during 2009, businessman Teodor Berna, administrator of the company Tehnologica Radion, contacted Darius Valkov, at that time the mayor of the municipality of Slatin, to whom he offered to influence decision-makers within the customer (SC) in exchange for support Compania de Apa Olt SA) to win tenders for the works for the sites located in Slatin, Skornicesti, Piatra Olt and Draganesti, to grant him 20% of the amount received in accordance with the contracts for the performance of the relevant work. The proposal was made in the context of the government approval in November 2008 of the project “Extension and rehabilitation of water supply and drainage systems in the county of Olt”, the final beneficiary of which is SC Compania de Apa Olt SA, the regional operator. , financing, for the most part, from non-returnable European funds.

Within the framework of this project, three contracts were concluded, respectively, for “Reconstruction and expansion of the water supply and sewerage network in the cities of Skornicesti and Potkoava”, “Reconstruction and expansion of the water supply and sewerage network in the municipality of Slatina” and “Reconstruction and expansion of the water supply and sewerage network in the cities of Draganesht- Alt and Piatra-Alt”.

During the tender procedures related to the award of the three contracts, at the insistence of Darius Valkov, the commission members improperly removed some acceptance conditions from the specifications in order to favor Tehnologica Radion. As a result, Tehnologica Radion won the tenders organized within the project “Expansion and reconstruction of water supply and drainage systems in Olt County”, signing contracts with Olt Water Company for several works worth 78,201,552 lei.

According to DNA, Teodor Berna and Darius Valkov mutually agreed that the sums of money should be transferred to the latter in cash, in lei and only at the company’s head office.

Thus, on the basis of this agreement, in the period from January to March 2011, Darius Valkov periodically appeared at the headquarters of Tehnologica Radion, where he received a total sum of 1,200,000 lei (in 3 installments of 400,000 lei each), the money belonged to him provided each once the contractor Compania De Apa Olt made payments to the company’s account. In addition, between April and December 2011, Darius Valkov received a total of 2,500,000 lei (in 5 installments of 500,000 lei) from Teodor Berna through Minel Prina. In addition, during 2012-2013, Darius Valkov received 3,080,000 lei from the businessman through several companies, DNA prosecutors said.

• “In order to hide the illegal origin of the money, Darius Valkov, with the help of other defendants, developed a fictitious financial mechanism between Tehnologica Radion and another company, concluding three fictitious contracts for the supply of goods/services without it. a company providing any services on the basis of contracts specifically concluded in this regard.
• From here, the transfer of sums of money was carried out with the support and through the defendants Lucian Shushal, Petre Timofte and Constantin Tomescu and other businessmen, trusted persons from the entourage of the mayor and vice-mayor of the municipality of Slatin, administrators of some commercial companies who created a scheme of fictitious financial and accounting documents to hide the true origin and purpose of the sums of money. The contracts concluded between these companies, as well as the invoices issued under these contracts, were fictitious, which testify to circumstances that do not correspond to reality,” the prosecutors also noted.

According to DNA, this mechanism, in addition to concealing the sum of 3,080,000 lei, also involved the transfer of assets obtained as a result of the crime of influence peddling in the form of works of art and in the form of services, facilities and goods for the benefit of a hotel in the municipality of Slatin, which he owned and controlled Valkov through intermediaries.

In that case, prosecutors ordered the seizure of three gold bars worth 465,355 lei, 172 works of art worth 2,558,658 lei, 63,010 pounds, 290,334 euros and 73,077 dollars. An insurance seizure was also imposed by seizing the sums of 90,000 dollars, 1,322,950 lei and 600,000 lei. All these goods and sums of money came into the ownership of Darius Valkov, with the exception of the sum of 600,000 lei, which remained in the account of the commercial company.

Darius Valkov avoided two corruption cases

In mid-March, Darius Valkov was acquitted of one of the corruption cases after the Craiova Court of Appeal decided to end the trial in which he was sentenced at first instance to six and a half years in prison in 2020. The decision is final and is announced after the decision of the Constitutional Court regarding the statute of limitations.

In this case, Darius Valkov was sent to court in 2015 by prosecutors of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Olt Court for inciting bribery. He was accused that between November and December 2012, as the mayor, he demanded from the whistleblower businessman approximately 10% of the amount collected by the company from the Slatina City Hall, based on a pre-signed contract, and between January 21 and June 13 In 2013, he received more than 2.1 million lei from this company through another intermediary in several installments.

The money required that the whistleblower had no problems fulfilling the contract and was paid on time for the work done, prosecutors said. These are contracts for the rehabilitation of the historical center of the municipality of Slatin and technical and economic justifications, technical projects and works on thermal insulation of some quarters.

Also in November 2021, the Court of Appeal of Craiova acquitted him in a case in which he was accused of inciting bribe giving and receiving.