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Beatrice Rancea, manager of the Romanian National Opera House in Iasi, has been taken by the police from home and brought to the DIICOT headquarters in Iasi for hearings, as part of an investigation into financial irregularities at the Iasi Opera House, with a damage amounting to 5 million lei, according to AGERPRES.
Another 13 people are to be heard in this case.
The DIICOT (Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism) prosecutors - the Iasi Territorial Service and judicial police officers on Monday morning conducted 26 home searches in Bucharest and Iasi as part of an investigation into forgery and fraud offences, and building a criminal ring, in connection with several irregularities found at the Romanian National Opera in Iasi
The searches took place in the context of a prolonged conflict between the employees and the manager of the Romanian National Opera in Iasi, Beatrice Rancea, which led to several criminal complaints having been filed by both parties.
According to DIICOT and IGPR releases, since 2014, an organised criminal group led by one person, who worked as a manager of some cultural institutions in Iasi and Bucharest, has been set up to operate alternatively in the municipalities of Iasi and Bucharest.
The members of the group obtained large amounts of money in subsidies and allocations from the state budget, in this case from the budget of the Ministry of Culture.
However, they tried to embezzle, in various ways, the subsidies granted by the Ministry of Culture for the promotion of the cultural system through the Bucharest National Opera and the Romanian National Opera Iasi.
The prosecutors' investigation highlighted the fact that the criminal activity of the group covered, on the one hand, the entire range of acquisitions, and on the other hand, it also targeted the expenses with the collaborators and the rents.
The group wanted to embezzle the money, by fraudulent maneuvers, to their own personal benefit and interests, the same as their collaborators'.
