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Prosecutors with the Bacau Local Office of the Directorate for Investigating Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) have conducted searches in Bucharest City and six Romanian counties in a tax evasion case with a damage in excess of 9 million lei in which the legal representative of SC Lukoil Romania SRL is also involved.
"It has been noted that in 2009-2010, defendants Matei Eugen, Gherghel Amalia, Ceban Sergiu, Tirla Calin, Izvernari Danuţ Nelu, Negru Dumitru Florin, Mazalu Petru, Mara Bogdan Marius, Novacescu Gheorghe Tony, Vasile Angelica, Sinca Valentin, Gorea Florentin and Slevoaca Cristina got together in four organised crime groups for the purpose of committing repeated tax evasion by creating a fictitious circuit for the acquisition and delivery of bitumen from Vaza LTD Bulgaria and Lukoil Neftochim Bourgas AD Bulgaria, in the sense of replacing traders in writing documents to evade this way the payment of the related VAT and profit tax," reads a press statement released by DIICOT on Friday.
The members of the group were allegedly aided in their criminal pursuit by SC Lukoil Romania SRL, through its legal representative, which interposed in the merchant shipping circuit a UK trading company. First estimates put the damage incurred on the national budget is at 9,139,242 lei, representing the VAT on payments and profit taxes. The DIICOT Bacau Prosecutors, together with judicial police officers with organised crime brigades in Bucharest, Bacau, Timisoara, Suceava, Iasi, Ploiesti and Pitesti, carried out 23 searches in this case.
After the searches, defendants Eugen Matei, Amalia Gherghel, Sergiu Ceban, Calin Tirla and Danut Nelu Izvernari were detained for 24 hours for setting up an organised crime group, tax evasion and complicity to tax evasion. The five were subsequently held in custody, and eight of the other defendants were placed under judiciary control.
