Case of dead forest ranger in Romania reveals ties between lumber mafia and prosecutors
The prosecutors investigating the violent death of a 37-years old forest ranger in Romania’s Maramures region seem to favor the hypothesis that the man accidentally shot himself with his rifle. Moreover, the investigators claim they…
Romania Insider · Journalist
· Updated · 4 min read
The prosecutors investigating the violent death of a 37-years old forest ranger in Romania’s Maramures region seem to favor the hypothesis that the man accidentally shot himself with his rifle. Moreover, the investigators claim they haven’t found evidence that the ranger’s death is connected to illegal logging as initially reported. Meanwhile, the local media revealed that one of the three suspects for the ranger’s death is the nephew of the town’s head prosecutor, who is known for her ties with the locals involved in the so-called “lumber mafia”.
The death of 37-year old forest ranger Liviu Pop on Wednesday evening, October 16, had a strong echo in Romania, as the initial reports suggested the man was shot by lumber thieves. State forestry company Romsilva said that Pop was the second ranger shot by wood thieves in just a month and revealed that 16 of its rangers were assaulted while on duty this year alone. The case even reverberated in the international media after the BBC covered the story.
The last hour in the ranger’s live
Liviu Pop was working as a ranger in a private forest near Targu Lapus. On Wednesday evening, he received a call signaling an illegal logging activity in the forest he was supervising. He called his district chief to inform him of the situation and went to the site. The district chief called the police. When the police arrived at the indicated place, they found the ranger dead in a meadow. He appeared to have been shot multiple times and had multiple bruises as well as a broken leg.
The investigators and representatives of the Forestry Department in Maramures initially spoke about an extremely violent murder. The initial hypothesis was that the ranger fought the presumed lumber thieves who managed to take his rifle and shoot him in the shoulder (from behind) and then shot at him several more shots. The prosecutors opened a murder investigation, Bogdan Gabor, head prosecutor with the Maramures Court officially announced at that time, according to Adevarul.
The ranger was married and had three children.
The secondary hypothesis: accidental self-shooting
Two days after the ranger’s death, the investigators had no suspects and, after hearing several people, developed a secondary hypothesis: the ranger shot himself by accident. They also seemed to believe that the incident had nothing to do with lumber theft. The investigators said they only found a cart with brushwood near the place where the ranger was found and there was no evidence that the wood had been cut from the respective forest.
