DIICOT searches: Owners of bars and clubs in Bucharest, targeted for tax evasion and money laundering

The owners of several clubs and bars in Bucharest are targeted by the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) for tax evasion and money laundering, as 43 searches were conducted Thursday morning. They are to be brought for hearings later in the day, judicial sources said.
DIICOT Bucharest carried out 43 searches at all sites of the companies Choco Ateneu SRL, Choco Mosilor SRL, Coza Nostra Art Ltd, Theobroma Consult SRL, Theoprod Art SRL, Restaurante Tratoria Il Calcio SRL, Twins Downtown SRL, Twins Cafe SRL, Le Club Herastrau SRL, Rubicon Floreasca Ltd, which own the premises Chocolat, Trattoria Il Calcio, Fratelli, Le club, etc.
The investigators suspect that an organized crime group specialized in crimes of tax evasion and money laundering through commercial activities is operating in Bucharest. They allegedly operate by reducing the tax base using an accounting software that allows the keeping of double accounting records (a real one which highlights the real revenues and a fictitious one, reflecting reduced revenues and increased expenses), said the sources.
The group’s coordinators are reportedly Tudor – Mihai Constantinescu and the French citizen Jean Philippe Pierre Luc Guilbert-Lassange, associates of the companies Choco Ateneu SRL, Choco Mosilor SRL, Coza Nostra Art Ltd, Theobroma Consult SRL and Theoprod Art SRL.