Hospital manager in Romania arrested for bribery and embezzlement after journalistic investigation

Romania’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) held the former manager of the Malaxa Hospital in Bucharest, on Friday evening, December 9. The prosecutors charged him with embezzlement and bribery. Florin Secareanu, the former manager of the Malaxa Hospital, was called in for questioning by the anticorruption prosecutors on Friday, after a journalistic investigation carried out by Catalin Tolontan and his team revealed some of Secureanu’s abuses. Florin Secureanu, who had been managing the Malaxa Hospital since 2007, was fired after the first articles appeared. The DNA prosecutors charged Secureanu with embezzlement and calculated that he took almost RON 2 million (EUR 430,000) from the hospital’s money through daily cash withdrawals. The hospital manager allegedly covered this by asking his subordinates to produce false invoices and bills for services that were never provided. According to the prosecutors, Florin Secureanu also asked a company that benefited from contracts with the hospital to cover some 470 trips that he and people in his entourage took abroad or in Romania. The firm thus bought him plane tickets, accommodation, restaurant meals, and rental cars worth some RON 800,000 (EUR 178,000). For this, DNA charged him with bribery. However, the journalist investigation published by Tolo.ro, which includes several ample articles, describes a lot more illegal activities carried out by the former Malaxa Hospital manager. The journalists wrote about his hospitals contracts with several companies allegedly controlled by former Bucharest mayor Sorin Oprescu, Secureanu’s mentor at the beginning of his career. Another article mentions how Florin Secureanu invited top local politicians to the opening of a nursing home in Ramnicu Valcea, financed by the local authorities. Secureanu apparently obtained the money for the nursing home using his foundation, which claimed to be affiliated to the Knights of Malta. The nursing home was closed the day after inauguration. Catalin Tolontan and his team have carried out journalistic investigations on the abuses in the public healthcare system. Their most famous articel series was the diluted disinfectant investigation, which led to one of the biggest scandals in the healthcare system earlier this year. Insights into a corrupt system: New allegations in diluted disinfectant scandal in Romania