Swiss Leaks tax dodging scandal reveals Romanian politician’s secret accounts

Romanian politician Viorel Hrebenciuc, the former grey eminence of the Social Democratic Party (PSD), was among the Romanians who had accounts opened with HSBC Switzerland. RISE Project, an independent journalism project in Romania, revealed the information, which came from the Swiss Leaks files. The Swiss Leaks files show how global banking giant HSBC helped some of the world’s richest people dodge taxes and hide their money in secret bank accounts in Switzerland. A total of 219 of the over 100,000 HSBC clients whose account details were leaked had ties to Romania. Some of these were Romanian politicians, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which studied the documents. One of the accounts belonged to Viorel Hrebenciuc, one of the most influential politicians in Romania in the last 25 years. He was secretary general of the Romanian government from 1992 until 1996 and then became a member of the Romanian Parliament. He was the leader of the PSD MPs from 2000 until 2010. A skilled negotiator, a creator of intrigues with strong ties to the media, Hrebenciuc forged and broke alliances according to his and his party’s interests. He was also one of the main go-to people in PSD for local businessmen who wanted influence with the Government, during PSD’s ruling. Some Romanian media wrote that Hrebenciuc’s name had become a measure of corruption. Romanian anticorruption prosecutors indicted Viorel Hrebenciuc in November 2014 on charges of influence peddling and money laundering in a case related to illegal forest retrocessions. Hrebenciuc resigned from the Parliament, which allowed prosecutors to arrest him. His son, Andrei Hrebenciuc was also arrested. The former PSD leader opened his account at HSBC in 1996. Three other people had access to the account: Hrebenciuc’s wife Letitia, his son Andrei and a controversial businessman, Robert Deutsch, according to RISE Project. Robert Deutsch was one of the key people in a controversial business that took place in the 90s, known as the Megapower affair. The state lost over USD 11 million due to fraud. A state-owned company, IIRUC, got a USD 11.7 million loan from the Finance Ministry, in 1991, to set up a joint venture in the US that was supposed to produce advanced technologies. Instead of starting a new business, the joint company bought a majority stake in Megapower Corporation, headquartered in California. Megapower, whose representative in Romania was Robert Deutsch, went bankrupt shortly after the deal. The state didn’t recover anything from its investment. Current PM Victor Ponta was the prosecutor who investigated this case until 2000. He only indicted IIRUC’s former general manager, according to RISE Project. The Hrebenciuc-Deutsch account was closed in 2006. At that time, there were almost USD 90,000 in the account, which Hrebenciuc didn’t disclose this sum in his wealth statements. RISE Project announced it would release new information about Romanian politicians and businessmen who had secret accounts in Switzerland. RISE Project journalists, who are affiliated with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, saw the documents in the Swiss Leaks scandal. The Swiss Leaks files originated from data provided by Hervé Falciani, a former HSBC employee-turned-whistleblower, to the French government in 2008. The French newspaper Le Monde obtained a version of the tax authority data, covering 100,000 clients (individuals and legal entities) from more than 200 countries. The total value of these customers’ accounts is over USD 100 billion.