Anti-graft prosecutors on Tuesday detained former footballer Alexandru Piturca, son of ex national football coach Victor Piturca, for 24 hours in the case of illegal public procurements during the COVID pandemic, judicial sources told AGERPRES.
Alexandru Piturca was questioned for several hours at the headquarters of the National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA), after which the prosecutors issued a 24-hour detention order on his name, Agerpres informs.
In the same case, Victor Piturca and the general manager of the National Company Romarm SA Gabriel Tutu are subjected to non-custodial pre-trial investigation after spending 24 hours in the custody of the Capital Police.
Victor Piturca and Gabriel Tutu are accused of influence peddling and abuse of office in connection with the procurement of machinery and protective masks for the National Defense Ministry during the COVID pandemic -19.
According to a release of the National Anti-corruption Directorate, between March 19, 2020 and September 16, 2021, Romarm general manager Gabriel Tutu, acting in violation of the legal provisions, has entered two public procurement contracts with an association of companies that also included one controlled by Piturca; the highly disadvantageous contracts for Romarm provided for the purchase of seven non-compliant machines for the production of protective masks.
"The aforementioned actions caused National Company Romarm SA a loss of 8,647,584 RON, representing the value of the mentioned machines, the value of the raw material and subsequently the value of related parts and services (outside the contract scope)," the investigators argue.
In a similar context, the prosecutors maintain that between March 19, 2020 and April 10, 2020, Gabriel Tutu has asked, among others, the representatives of the companies involved in the said purchases to introduce into the commercial circuit for the delivery of non-compliant protective masks to the National Defense Ministry a friend of his who actually did not provide any real commercial activities ancillary to the contract for the delivery of protection products, and to perform payments to the latter (40 percent of the profit share) under the guise of a consultancy contract.
"In exchange for these 'services', suspect Gabriel Tutu induced the belief that he has influence over Defense Ministry officials and that he will determine them to directly award the procurement contracts without public procedures, and also take over the products without raising any objections and foot the relevant invoices. In this context, suspect Gabriel Tutu has allegedly received 50,000 RON through a go-between," the anti-corruption prosecutors mention.
