Romanian gendarmes and police officers on active duty went to Congo to work for private security firms, even though they were on sick leave in Romania. According to data published in a report by the Ministry of the Interior, 11 MAI employees were mercenaries in Congo.
This comes after the Defense Ministry issued a similar report, confirming that at least 7 soldiers in active soldiers worked as mercenaries in Congo, while reporting they were on parental leave.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs announced that it is about eight gendarmes and three police officers who would have gone to Congo to work for private security companies in recent years.
According to the law, they were not allowed to go as mercenaries to a foreign country, while they had a valid contract with the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They would have been in Congo to train paramilitary troops, as instructors.
Further checks are being carried out and it is possible that the number of these cadres will increase. The 11 employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, gendarmes and police officers, continue to work at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as active personnel. State Secretary Bogdan Despescu announced that some of them had access to classified information, but it is not yet known what the level of access was, or what classified information they had access to.
There is a suspicion that some of them worked for Horațiu Potra, who publicly said that he took thousands of Romanians to Congo to work there.
According to an investigation released by the Ministry of Defense on Wednesday, seven soldiers in active service of the Romanian Army participated in missions in Congo as mercenaries, the Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday. From the data known so far, seven employees of the Ministry of Defense and 11 from the Ministry of Interior were in Congo while they were also active cadres, which is why representatives of the Gendarmerie and the Police sent notifications to prosecutors to open criminal cases.