Romanian media mogul and former CME CEO held in tax evasion case

Romanian prosecutors held Adrian Sarbu, one of the country’s media moguls, on Monday evening (February 2). They made this decision after questioning Sarbu for several hours in a tax evasion, money laundering and embezzlement case. The court will decide on Tuesday if Sarbu spends the next 30 days in police custody, after the 24-hour arrest. Adrian Sarbu exited the prosecutor’s office handcuffed. He said the case against him was a fabrication that was ordered by Prime Minister Victor Ponta and his allies. Sarbu, 59, owns the Mediafax group, one of the largest media groups in Romania. His company owns the Mediafax news agency, Ziarul Financiar, Romania’s top business newspaper, Business Magazin and Gandul.info, a general news site. The Mediafax Group was in the midst of a tax evasion and money laundering case at the end of last year. Several of the group’s managers were questioned and held in November 2014 on tax evasion charges. The group filed for insolvency in November, as the Fiscal Administration (ANAF) seized its accounts. “The Mediafax case targets the destruction of Mediafax, Gandul and Ziarul Financiar. These are media institutions that I have built in the last 25 years and kept politically independent,” Sarbu said in a press statement on Monday. He added that this case is a political vendetta because his group did not support Prime Minister Victor Ponta who ran for president in November. He also said that Ponta’s allies want to liquidate his media group in order to buy it cheap, naming Sebastian Ghita, the owner of the Romania TV news station and one of Ponta’s close friends, among those interested in such a takeover. “This is a typical case of state terrorism against media institutions.” Adrian Sarbu is best known for founding PRO TV, Romania’s largest private TV station, which is now part of CME group. He was CME’s CEO from 2009 until 2013. Sarbu also founded the MediaPro group, which included Romania’s largest movie studio located in Buftea, near Bucharest, and the Cinema Pro and Hollywood Multiplex cinemas. He also sold MediaPro to CME. Prosecutors have also been investigating MediaPro and several other related firms for tax evasion and money laundering, in recent months. editor@romania-insider.com