Bogdan Padiu, the CEO and owner of Teamnet International, the biggest Romanian software producer, was held for 24 hours by the anticorruption prosecutors, on Monday evening, February 27. The World Bank’s investment arm IFC also holds a significant stake in Teamnet group and the prosecutors claim that the financial institution may have been tricked into buying the shares with artificially inflated financial indicators.

The prosecutors charged Bogdan Padiu with accessory to influence peddling and money laundering and setting up an organized crime group. Padiu was taken to the National Anticorruption Directorate – DNA’s office in Ploiesti on Monday, just before noon, for questioning in a case targeting fugitive Romanian businessman Sebastian Ghita, who controlled Teamnet International until 2012, when he officially passed the control to Padiu.

Cristian Anastasescu, Ghita’s brother-in-law, who is also administrator of Asesoft International, another IT&C company founded by Ghita, was also held on Monday evening on the same charges as Padiu. Asesoft was one of the biggest tech companies in Romania some ten years ago.

DNA will ask the court to issue 29-day preventive arrest warrants for both Padiu and Anastasescu. The prosecutors also issued an arrest warrant in absentia for Sebastian Ghita, who disappeared at the end of December, while investigated by the DNA in several other cases. Ghita is currently on Europol’s most wanted list.

DNA’s new case against Ghita targets the way he used his influence over state officials to get contracts from various state institutions and state-owned companies for various IT companies. In exchange for his services, Ghita may have indirectly received over RON 55 million (EUR 12 million, at the current exchange rate) between 2007 and 2014 from the IT companies that got public contracts thanks to his intervention, according to DNA data.

The payments were disguised as fictitious acquisitions of IT services those companies made from Teamnet International, Asesoft International and other companies Ghita controlled, according to the prosecutors. Teamnet International allegedly artificially increased its turnover with some RON 24.6 million (EUR 5.5 million) as a result of the fictitious deliveries of IT services, which may have contributed to the World Bank’s decision to buy shares in the group and extend a EUR 10 million loan to it, in 2014.

Asesoft International and Teamnet International have won many IT contracts from ministries, state institutions, and state-owned companies over the years. Last year, a report made by former Prime Minister Dacian Ciolos’s control body showed that 19 public entities placed total orders for software products and licenses worth over 3.7 billion, from January 2011 until July 2016. The same entities paid EUR 3.1 billion for those products.

Teamnet International was the second-biggest beneficiary of these contracts, receiving some RON 261 million from those state institutions in the analyzed period, after Siveco (RON 377 million), and ahead of UTI Grup (RON 108 million). Both Siveco and UTI had their leaders investigated for illegal activities.

While some claimed that Teamnet got many of its contracts were due to Sebastian Ghita’s political influence, the company denied any connection with the former owner.

Sebastian Ghita formally sold his businesses in 2012, before he was elected as a deputy in Romania’s Parliament. Ghita also became one of the top members of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) during former Prime Minister Victor Ponta’s leadership. He was officially the wealthiest member of Romania’s Parliament, as he had over EUR 25 million in bank accounts as well as over EUR 90 million borrowed to a man called Alexandru Iacobescu, in 2013. He also had a collection of watches, jewelry, and art worth EUR 17 million, according to his wealth statement.

Bogdan Padiu, who was Ghita’s high-school colleague, founded Teamnet International in 2001 together with some friends. He got a USD 100,000 seed capital financing from Sebastian Ghita, who got 80% of the company’s shares in exchange, according to an article published by Business Magazin. In 2012, Ghita exited the company and Padiu took control.

Teamnet International was the third-biggest software producer in Romania by turnover, in 2015, with sales of EUR 71 million. The first two places were held by Oracle Romania and Ericsson Telecommunication Romania, both part of international groups.

The Teamnet group also includes Teamnet Engineering, Teamnet Dedalus Healthcare Systems, which produces software for hospitals, and Ymens Teamnet, which develops cloud-based technologies. The whole group had a turnover of EUR 93 million in 2014, up by a third compared to 2013, and 800 employees.

Teamnet was included for several years in a row in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe ranking of the most dynamic tech companies in the region.

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editor@romania-insider.com