Former Microsoft Romania general manager Calin Tatomir and six other people were held by the anti-organized crime prosecutors on Wednesday, June 8, on charges of tax evasion and money laundering.

The Bucharest Court approved the prosecutors’ request that Tatomir and the other should remain in arrest in the next 30 days.

The Directorate for Combatting Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) alleged that Calin Tatomir and the other suspects created a web of companies which they used to register fictitious expenses and reduce the VAT and profit tax owed to the state. The group thus damaged the state budget by some RON 11.4 million (EUR 2.5 million).

The prosecutors haven’t released the names of the companies involved in the crime ring and only mentioned that the illegal activities were carried out between 2007 and 2014.

Calin Tatomir was general manager of Microsoft Romania from 2008 until 2010. He also owns an IT consultancy firm, CCT SRL, which had RON 4 mln revenues and a net profit of close to RON 1 mln in 2015.

Several other known people in the local IT sector have been arrested in this case, including Cezar Columbeanu and Robert-Florin Cristea, the shareholders of local IT integrator Novensys, Cristian Calinescu, a shareholder of the telecom services group GIR, and Norbert Hauser, the owner of an oriental rug gallery in Bucharest.

The IT&C sector in Romania has been hit by several big corruption and tax evasion scandals in recent years. Here are just some of them:

Romanian court rules jail sentences for businessmen and politicians involved in Microsoft licenses case

Romanian anticorruption prosecutors take on IT giant HP

Court rules final jail sentence for founder of Romanian software producer Siveco

Romanian prosecutors start new probe on big local IT&C group

editor@romania-insider.com