Romgaz file, referred to court by DIICOT – Adriean Videanu and Ioan Niculae, among the defendants

The Romgaz file, which investigates the company’s embezzlement, was referred to court by the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) prosecutors. The case is to be resolved by the Supreme Court. The defendants list includes former minister Adriean Videanu (photo 2) and businessman Ioan Niculae (photo 3).

Prosecuted in the file are also Marin Mirea, Dan-Victor Alesandru, Viorel Palasca, Ioana Apan, Alpar Kramer, Francis Toth, Lucian Stancu, Marius Veza, Lucia Ionascu and Interagro as legal entity.

The charges are the setting up of an organized criminal group, embezzlement with particularly serious consequences in continuous form and complicity to embezzlement with particularly serious consequences in continuous form.

According to DIICOT, the group was initiated at the beginning of 2005 by Ioan Niculae, a former major shareholder at Interagro, along with company manager Marin Mirea and commercial director of SNGN Romgaz, later supported by Alesandru Dan-Victor (former secretary of state with the Ministry of Economy in 2005 and later representative of SC Interagro SA), Adriean Videanu (Minister of Economy, December 2008-September 2010), Palaşcă Viorel (secretary of state with the Ministry of Economy, 2007-2008), Apan Ioana (civil servant with the Ministry of Economy and a member of shareholders assembly and Romgaz SA board chairman).

“The organized criminal group functioned until the end of 2010 and sought to obtain material gains by the group leader through its controlled company -SC Interagro SA. Thus, in order to achieve the purpose of the criminal group, aiming at embezzling SNGN Romgaz SA (civil party in the present case) in order to obtain natural gas at prices lower than those normally charged by the civil party, by illegally obtaining commercial discounts to which SC Interagro SA was not entitled. The criminal mechanism was supposed to obtain natural gas from Romgaz by the persons with managerial positions for another: for the company controlled by the leader of the respective group, i.e. Interagro SA,” DIICOT concludes.

DIICOT maintains that the group’s activity took place in two stages.

The first stage allegedly was during 2005-2007, when Ioan Niculae did not appeal to the Ministry of Economy, obtaining discounts by ‘negotiating’ with the people in the SNGN Romgaz S.A. management.

The second stage, in which the granted discounts represented about 98% of the total, took place during 2008-2010, when Ioan Niculae used his influence as influential businessman in Romania and appealed to politically appointed persons with the leadership of the Ministry of Economy, which had the ROMGAZ subordinated, according to the prosecutors.

During 2008-2010, discounts were granted, totalling RON 274,094,041.

The total damage to Romgaz is of RON 282,630,330.49.

adriean videanuAlpar KramerDan-Victor AlesandruDIICOTembezzlementFrancis TothInterAgroIoan NiculaeIoana ApanLucia IonascuLucian StancuMarin MireaMarius VezaMinistry of Economynatural gasOrganized Crime and Terrorismorganized criminal groupRomgaz fileViorel Palasca
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