German citizen and four Romanians held in “Projekt Maramures” slavery case

Romanian prosecutors from the anti-organized crime department – DIICOT held a German citizen and four Romanians in the “Projekt Maramures” case. Two other people, namely a German woman and another Romanian, were placed under judicial control for a period of 60 days. Meanwhile, four German teenagers aged between 12 and 18, who were part of the program, were placed under protection at DIICOT’s request.

The “Projekt Marmures” case investigates the illegal deprivation of liberty of several German teenagers with special needs, sent for reeducation in Romania, as part of a program financed by the German state. The suspects allegedly held the teenagers in slave-like conditions, forced them to do hard labor and subjected them to severe punishments.

The German citizen and his wife are believed to have coordinated the organized crime group, which included a Romanian citizen and some of his relatives. They were charged with minor trafficking and illegal deprivation of liberty, DIICOT announced.

The project started in 2014, when the group started bringing to Romania German teenagers with antisocial behavior, coming from disorganized environments and with severe conditions (depression, psychosis, drug addiction), for reeducation. The German authorities took these children from their parents and entrusted them to the organization in Romania for rehabilitation. The program, financed by the German state, was supposed to include recreational activities in nature and multidisciplinary education provided by specialists in pedagogy, psychology and other fields.

In reality, the teenagers were excluded from any form of learning, had their identity documents and belongings confiscated and were subjected to brutal so-called education methods promoted by the German project coordinator, based on personal educational beliefs, according to DIICOT.

The teenagers were exploited and asked to do hard labor, beyond their physical capacities, and were punished with repeated beating, food deprivation, a so-called arrest, medical procedures against their will. Some other extreme punishments included them being tied with ropes and asked to pull the cart alongside animals, or being held in the cold or rain. These punishments created severe psychical and physical trauma to the minors and determined suicidal intentions in some case, DIICOT said.

Following searches at the suspects’ homes on August 27, the investigators found over EUR 145,000. The prosecutors concluded that the group’s members took the money from the German state, which was meant to finance the children’s rehabilitation, and used it in their own interest.

The investigators also suspect that the leaders of the criminal group had accomplices among the public authorities (police, town hall, social protection), who notified them about the periodical controls of the Social Assistance and Child Protection Direction in Maramures, according to judicial sources quoted by Agerpres,