Romanian businessmen, newspaper director, business lawyer, arrested in illegal retrocession case

Romanian businessman Remus Truica, former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase’s chief of staff, Marius Marcovici, former PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu’s adviser, journalist Dan Andronic, the director of the Evenimentul Zilei newspaper, were held on Wednesday night by the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) prosecutors, after several hours of questioning at the DNA Brasov headquarters. The prosecutors also detained Lucian Claudiu Mateescu, the general manager of local real estate developer Impact, and Robert Mihaita Rosu, a partner in a top business law firm in Romania. The prosecutors also carried out searches at the suspects’ homes and at several company headquarters as they have been investigating the illegal retrocession of a large land plot in northern Bucharest. The state took a damage of EUR 136 million following this illegal retrocession, which the suspects allegedly coordinated, according to a DNA press release. The group led by Remus Truica allegedly helped an “influence buyer”, which the DNA didn’t nominate in its release, get several assets returned by the state, including a 28.6-hectare plot known as Ferma Baneasa (The Baneasa Farm). According to DNA, Remus Truica and his group allegedly helped “the influence buyer” get the claimed assets by offering money and gifts to decision makers in various state institutions that owned those assets to get them to sign various legal documents. Truica’s group would get 50% to 80% of the recovered assets’ value for themselves in exchange for their actions, according to DNA. The prosecutors also found that the restitutions had been illegal, as they were not based on documents that showed the solicitant’s right of inheritance on those assets. Paul Lambrino, also known as Prince Paul of Romania, was also called for questioning at DNA Brasov, in the same case. He didn't make it, as he got sick on the way and had to go to the hospital in Ploiesti on Wednesday. Prince Paul's name also appeared in the illegal forest restitution case in which Romanian politician Viorel Hrebenciuc, one of the most influential leaders of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), was arrested in 2014. Hrebenciuc, who now stands trial for his involvement in the illegal retrocession of 43,000 hectares of woodland, had allegedly promised Prince Paul to help him get a similar retrocession. Prince Paul was questioned as a witness in that case, but the DNA didn’t prosecute him. Romanian businessmen and bank executives, involved in one of the biggest bank fraud cases in the last 15 years editor@romania-insider.com