Romanian railways fraud plot thickens: three more accused of USD 1.6 mln fraud

Three Romanians were sent to court for having defrauded the Romanian Railways Company (CFR) together with its former manager Mihai Necolaiciuc. The fraud of some USD 1.6 million came from 2001, when a local company, Romtehno Invent, won a contract to install a monitoring system on 100 kilometers of railway, even though the company did not have any employees or activity. Viorel Gaşpar, Dumitru Creştin and Andrei Bogdan Gheorghiu controlled the winning firm and the two other companies that had submitted offers in the same bid. After the contract was signed, the company billed CFR some USD 1.6 million, without having actually offered the services in the contract. The case was split from a bigger case involving Mihai Necolaiciuc and others from the CFR management, who allegedly caused a damage of USD 18 million to CFR. Necolaiciuc's trial started in 2008, on account of alleged frauds between 2000 and 2003. In order to be tried in Romania, the former CFR GM was extradited from the US and brought into Romania in 2011. He was freed from detention in January 2012 and is currently on trial. editor@romania-insider.com