Wiretaps in Otopeni file. Heavy names, including Ciolacu, Grindeanu, Tudose or Rareș Bogdan, mentioned by the defendants

The wiretaps in the Otopeni Airport commercial premises file, in which a former director and three businessmen are under house arrest, mention heavy politicians names – PSD leader Marcel Ciolacu, Transport Minister Sorin Grindeanu, MEPs Mihai Tudose and Rareș Bogdan and potential future transport ministers.

All of them are mentioned or rumored by those involved as the decision-makers who could help extend some commercial deals worth tens of millions of euros, which would have opened the way for those involved to extend some commercial contracts by up to 10 years with the state airport.

Except that the National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) prompted in, because the agreement had to be initialed after a public auction that would have been fraudulent.

None of the politicians whose names appear in the transcripts are intercepted, at least not according to the indictment documents, obtained exclusively by Digi24.

The prosecutors’ transcripts capture conversations those under house arrest in the case have had largely over the past year in the order in which they are listed in the nearly 400-page indictment.

The first to be mentioned is the Minister of Transport, Sorin Grindeanu. The former director of the Airport and one of the businessmen interested in obtaining an extension of a contract that brings him business of tens of millions of euros, according to the documents in the file, is trying to find a solution to convince the Minister of Transport to propose in the Council of Otopeni Airport Administration extending the agreement that was to expire later this year.

Those involved in this file are also discussing the option that would have changed their business if the Ministry of Transport had switched from PSD to PNL in the government rotation, which is scheduled this year.

There are several names of politicians who could take over the leadership of the Ministry of Transport. An example is that of the MEP Rareș Bogdan.

Also, those involved in this file claim that they could get to it. Another interesting discussion between the conversations of those under investigation or between those under investigation and collaborators of the DNA, even Marcel Ciolacu, the PSD president.

The anti-corruption prosecutors say that one of the companies that operate these commercial spaces managed in 2019 to have a turnover of approximately 90 million euros, hence the huge sums circulated as bribes by those who claimed to be able to intervene or that they could find solutions to intervene with all these politicians up to 20 million euros.

Four people – including George Ivan, former director of Compania Nationale Aeroporturi Bucharest (CNAB) – were detained, and another former director of CNAB was placed under judicial control by the DNA, in the investigation regarding the lease contracts of commercial premises at the “Henri Coanda” Airport, formerly known as Otopeni Airport.

The crimes for which they are being investigated by the DNA are influence peddling, taking and giving bribes, money laundering and complicity in these crimes, and the facts would have happened from the end of 2021 until now.

In this case, DNA prosecutors carried out 11 searches on Tuesday at the residences of individuals and the offices of commercial companies. The investigation concerns the subcontracts concluded by CNAB for the rental of some spaces in the “Henri Coandă” Airport, the cited sources also said.

Anti-corruption prosecutors said that between January 11 and November 8, 2022, the natural person, without special capacity, directly or as the case may be, through Ivan George-Alexandru, allegedly claimed four times from a businessman (the defendant associated in a commercial company, investigated in the present case) and from the general manager of another commercial company, several sums of money (10,000,000 euros, 10,000,000 euros, 1,200,000 euros and 1,200,000 euros).