Searches in a case of abuse of office and fraud on a particularly large scale. Representatives of an economic agent and an association suspected of fraudulently obtaining a grant of 14 million lei

Officers of the National Anti-Corruption Centre (NAC) and prosecutors of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (PA) conducted searches in a case of abuse of office and fraud in particularly large proportions involving decision-makers of an economic agent and a public association. According to an NAC press release, they are suspected of having obtained a grant worth 14 million lei by rigging a public tender and other illegalities.

On Thursday, 19 October, the law enforcement agencies carried out searches at the homes of three figures, as well as at the offices of the association and the economic agent. Mobile phones, documents relating to the case and financial resources, the source of which could not be substantiated, were seized.

The NAC notes that the basis for launching investigations was the report of the Court of Auditors’ audit of the consolidated financial reports of the Ministry of Environment, which found that in 2021 the National Ecological Fund (FEN) approved for financing the investment project “Creation of sustainable solutions for recycling glass shards” in the amount of 14 million lei, the beneficiary of which was designated a public association, which at that stage did not have an environmental permit for waste management.

“In turn, the Association’s decision-makers, without respecting the principle of transparency in the organization of the public procurement process, manifested by not publishing the notice of the tender, allegedly favored an economic agent from which it procured various goods for the implementation of the project (sorting line, trucks and dumpsters).

In the operational analysis of the case, it was found that the decision-makers in the beneficiary association and the contracted economic agent are related persons and their offices are at the same address. Both the members of the Association and the contracted economic agent are said to have acted in complicity, pursuing a common material interest, which materialised in the fraudulent acquisition of the investment project in question (…)”, the NAC statement reads.

The Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office is conducting the criminal prosecution.