Liviu Dragnea was sent to court in the Tel Drum case, after six years of investigation

The Bucharest court will try him, along with other defendants, on charges of forming an organized criminal group and abuse of office. This after he was accused of illegally favoring the road company in Alexandria, for obtaining contracts in violation of the law, including financing with European funds.

The damage, claims DNA, for which Liviu Dragnea, Teldrum and the other defendants will have to account, is approximately 100,000,000 lei.

The National Anticorruption Directorate sent the Tel Drum file to court in December 2017. The investigators say that in 2015, the heads of the Tel Drum company in Alexandria allegedly obtained non-refundable European funds, illegally, for the purchase of a mobile asphalt mixing station. In order to receive the money, the prosecutors claim, the three suspects would have rigged the auction through which the machine had to be bought, so that a certain company would be the winner. After the firm won, Tel Drum paid for more services that were not needed.

The prosecutors give as an example the landscaping services on which the machine had to be installed. 200,000 lei were paid, although the place was already concreted. In addition, Tel Drum would have paid to the same company “560,000 lei for assembly assistance (although this was done under the guidance of the main supplier and with workers from Tel Drum SA) and the amount of 871,840 lei for miscellaneous and unforeseen expenses“.

Basically, the prosecutors claim, Tel Drum would have artificially increased the price of the equipment purchased through the rigged auction, in order to obtain more money from the European Union. The anti-corruption prosecutors also placed a seizure on the accounts of the Tel Drum company for the recovery of the damage of almost one million euros and asked the court to which they sent the file, to maintain the seizure.

Tel Drum then considered DNA’s action as malicious. In 2017, Romania would have returned, from our money, the European funds, which the Teleorman County Council, through the company “Road Tel“, would have defrauded them, as established by the “European Anti-Fraud Office”. The rule would be that the Romanian state pays the debt, and only then recovers it, if possible, from those responsible.

The damage of 21,000,000 euros should now be paid to the Romanian state by Liviu Dragnea and the other eight suspects in the case, but also by the Tel Drum company, where the money went.

DNA specifications

According to the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), the prosecutors sent Dragnea to court, in a state of freedom, for committing the following crimes:

– the establishment of an organized criminal group;

– abuse of office if the civil servant obtained an undue benefit for himself or for another (two acts);

– inciting the commission without guilt of the crime of using or presenting in bad faith false, inaccurate or incomplete documents or statements, if the deed results in the wrongful obtaining of European funds, committed in the form of improper participation.

Who else was sent to court in the Tel Drum case

They were also sent to court in a state of freedom:

Mugur Bățăuș, on the date of the facts, an official in the Teleorman County Council, for committing the crimes of:
– the establishment of an organized criminal group,
– abuse of office if the civil servant obtained an undue benefit for himself or for another;
– complicity in committing without guilt the crime of using or presenting in bad faith false, inaccurate or incomplete documents or statements, if the deed results in the wrongful obtaining of European funds, committed in the form of improper participation;
– complicity in abuse of office if the public official obtained an undue benefit for himself or for another.

Victor Piperea, on the date of the facts, an official in the Teleorman County Council, for committing the crimes of:
– the establishment of an organized criminal group;
– complicity in abuse of office if the public official obtained an undue benefit for himself or for another.

Marin Predescu, on the date of the facts, an official in the Teleorman County Council, for committing the crimes of:
– complicity in committing without guilt the crime of using or presenting in bad faith false, inaccurate or incomplete documents or statements, if the deed results in the wrongful obtaining of European funds, committed in the form of improper participation;
– complicity in abuse of office if the public official obtained an undue benefit for himself or for another.

SC Tel Drum SA, for committing the crimes of:
– the establishment of an organized criminal group;
– tax evasion, in continuous form;
– complicity in abuse of office if the public official obtained an undue benefit for himself or for another (two acts).

Natural person, close to the first mentioned, majority shareholder (scriptic) of SC Tel Drum SA, for committing the crime of setting up an organized criminal group;

Natural person, at the time of the act, associate and administrator of some commercial companies, for committing the crime of forming an organized criminal group;

Natural person, at the time of the act, representative of a commercial company, for committing the offense of forming an organized criminal group;

Natural person, at the time of the facts, representative of SC Tel Drum SA, for committing the crimes of:
– the establishment of an organized criminal group;
– complicity in two crimes of abuse of office, with obtaining benefits for oneself or for another;

Natural person, on the date of the facts, representative of SC Tel Drum SA, for the commission of crimes:
– the establishment of an organized criminal group;
– tax evasion, in continuous form;
– complicity in abuse of office if the public official obtained an undue benefit for himself or for another (two acts).

What Liviu Dragnea would have done

The defendant Liviu Nicolae Dragnea allegedly initiated an organized criminal group that included officials from the local administration, administrators/representatives of SC Tel Drum SA and other commercial companies, according to a statement sent to ProTV News on Monday.

The group would have acted in the period 2001-2017 in order to fraudulently obtain important sums from contracts financed from public funds (national and European), through crimes of abuse of office, fraud of European funds, tax evasion and using information that is not intended for advertising or allowing unauthorized persons access to this information.

Under the coordination and decision of the defendant Liviu Dragnea, within the group, public officials would have acted in the interest of some private companies.

For the operation of the group, it would have been necessary to privatize SC Tel Drum SA, transfer it from the property of the Teleorman County Council, through persons interposed, to the patrimony of Liviu Nicolae Dragnea, the purchase from public funds of a special asphalting machine and the discretionary assignment of the road rehabilitation contracts in the county to Tel Drum SA.

SC Tel Drum SA would have been the main commercial company in the group, massively capitalized and used to obtain works contracts, for the distribution of capital to the other commercial companies and group members, for the purchase of movable and immovable goods that are used by the group members, as well as to transfer ownership of movable and immovable property to the same members.

One of the crimes committed for the purpose for which the group was formed would have consisted in the illegal adjudication, by the company Tel Drum SA, of a contract for the rehabilitation of 55 km of county road in Teleorman, DJ 701, in the amount of 114,263,011 lei , of which the sum of 13,772,603 ​​euros came from European funds. In this context, as a representative of the Teleorman County Council, Liviu Dragnea would have issued and signed decisions and provisions, in violation of the law, indispensable documents for the contract award procedure which, among others, included a restrictive condition that favored SC Tel Road SA.

With the help of two other people from the group, namely Mugur Bățăuș and Victor Piperea, Dragnea allegedly ensured that the Tel Drum company benefited from confidential data that gave it an advantage when obtaining the contract and that restrictive conditions were included in the tender documents, including the requirement that the mandatory ballast stabilization method be the cold in situ variant.

Similarly, as a representative of the Teleorman County Council, Liviu Dragnea would have taken steps and contributed to the awarding, by the company Tel Drum SA, of a contract for the rehabilitation of over 50 km of DJ 506, another county road from Teleorman, in the amount of 62,482,442 lei, of which the sum of 6,930,138 euros came from European funds.

In order to finance this project and ensure the winning of the tender by SC Tel Drum SA, Dragnea, with the help of two public officials, Mugur Bățăuș and Predescu Marin, would have obtained the illegal modification of the technical project, by introducing restrictive conditions (the requirement as a mandatory method ballast stabilization to be the cold in situ variant) and the increase in the estimate of the works related to the road rehabilitation contract. Also, with the help of the other two previously mentioned, he would have caused the official assigned to hand over the documents to use false and inaccurate documents at the intermediary body ADR Sud Muntenia, thus unfairly obtaining the funding.

What is the damage caused to the public budget

With reference to the two contracts for the rehabilitation of county roads in Teleorman, the damage caused to the public budget would be:
– 25,600,927 lei regarding the DJ 701 contract (the difference between the price offered by Tel Drum SA and the lowest price offered);
– 5,742,872 lei for the DJ 506 contract (the difference between the actual estimate provided for in the project and the modified estimate).

Taken together, the two values ​​represent damage to the state budget and, at the same time, undue benefit for the winning company SC Tel Drum SA, respectively 31,343,799 lei.

As regards the crime affecting the financial interests of the European Union in relation to the project “Rehabilitation of the DJ 506 county road”, the retained damage represents the entire value of the project, namely 62,482,442 lei.

In addition, in order to avoid paying tax obligations, SC Tel Drum SA, through its representative, allegedly simulated, with the help of shell companies, fictitious commercial operations that it recorded in the accounting documents during 2010 -2012. In this way, SC Tel Drum SA would have avoided paying the total amount of 1,229,388 lei, representing VAT and profit tax.

The Ministry of Regional Development, Public Administration and European Funds, as well as the Ministry of Finance – the National Agency for Fiscal Administration, were constituted civil parties in the case. The Teleorman County Council did not become a civil party in the criminal process.

In order to recover damages, protective measures were ordered in the case.

The file was sent for trial to the Bucharest Court, with a proposal to maintain the protective measures.

This stage of the criminal process represents, according to the Code of Criminal Procedure, the completion of the criminal investigation and the sending of the indictment to the court for trial, a situation that cannot defeat the principle of the presumption of innocence.