Romanian prosecutors of the Anti-Organized Crime Directorate (DIICOT), the Bacau office, carried out searches in Bucharest and six counties last Friday, in a tax evasion case with a damage of over RON 9 million (EUR 1.9 million), which involves the legal representative of Lukoil Romania.

The defendants allegedly built four criminal groups between 2009 and 2010, according to prosecutors. They created a fake network to buy and deliver road bitumen from Vaza LTD Bulgaria and Lukoil Neftochim Bourgas AD Bulgaria. Companies thus managed to avoid paying the VAT and the income tax.

Lukoil Romania supported the group’s members, according to DIICOT, by interposing a company from UK on the freight supply chain.

Following the searches, some of the defendants were taken into custody while the others remained under judicial control.

Lukoil was also targeted by a major tax evasion probe in Romania in October 2014. The DIICOT prosecutors who investigated that case estimated that the company had damaged the state budget by some EUR 230 million. The case was sent to court in January 2016.

editor@romania-insider.com