Romanian prosecutors indict former presidential candidate Călin Georgescu in EUR 1 mln fraud case

Romanian prosecutors within DIICOT announced on Thursday, November 12, that they have indicted former presidential candidate and pro-Russian politician Călin Georgescu and businessman Ionel Rusen in the case in which they are accused of defrauding a businessman of more than EUR 1 million.

The two are accused of forming an organised criminal group and committing fraud with particularly serious consequences, on a continued basis.

The official DIICOT statement argued that Ionel Rusen, Călin Georgescu, and an Italian national, Massimiliano Arena, “formed an organised criminal group that acted in a coordinated manner until October 2023, mainly in Romania, but also in the United Kingdom, to commit fraud by misleading and keeping Romanian businesspeople under the false impression that they could obtain financing from foreign banking and financial institutions.”

“The aim of the members of the organised criminal group was to obtain undue financial benefits in the form of monetary guarantees deposited by the injured parties to access the respective loans,” according to the official DIICOT statement.

Cǎlin Georgescu was the surprise first-place finisher in the first round of Romania’s 2024 presidential election, which was annulled by the Constitutional Court. According to prosecutors, the politician was the leader of the criminal group.

The group “misled the representative of a company by presenting false circumstances as true, namely that they could obtain EUR 6 million in financing by concluding a loan agreement with a banking and financial institution that they claimed operated in the United Kingdom, although it was headquartered in the Union of the Comoros – East Africa,” prosecutors further stated in the official press release.

Prosecutors also stated that Ionel Rusen and Massimiliano Arena “claimed to hold management positions and, on the condition that a guarantee was deposited, induced the victim to transfer, on two different dates in December 2021, the amounts of EUR 2,500 and EUR 1 million” into the accounts of a financial entity headquartered in Dominica and held at a bank in Switzerland.

“Subsequently, by presenting another false circumstance as true, namely that the loan could be increased to EUR 15 million subject to the deposit of an additional guarantee, they induced the representative of the injured party to transfer, in January 2022, through the same financial route, the amount of EUR 100,000,” DIICOT further stated.