The National Anti-corruption Directorate (DNA) officially announced, in a press release, that it indicted Florian Coldea, former first deputy director of the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI), and general Dumitru Dumbrava, former head of SRI, for influence peddling, and placed them under judicial control on bail, with a ban on leaving the country.
Apart from the two above-mentioned, the DNA prosecutors ordered the initiation of criminal proceedings and the taking of the measure of judicial control on bail, starting with May 24, 2024, against a lawyer from the Bucharest Bar and a person without special capacity, as well, for committing crimes of influence peddling, the form of criminal participation being authorship and complicity.
DNA does not mention the names of the defendants, but they are generals Florian Coldea and Dumitru Dumbrava, lawyer Doru Traila, and the fourth person indicted is Dan Tocaci, a close friend of the three.
The four were questioned for almost 15 hours, being allowed to leave the DNA headquarters on Friday morning, around 3:00.
The case was opened following a denunciation made by businessman Catalin Hideg.
„Between March 2023 and April 2024, three of the defendants (the two businessmen and the lawyer from the Bucharest Bar) allegedly demanded from a businessman (witness in question) the amount of EUR 700,000 plus VAT, in exchange for which they would have allowed themselves to believe that they would have influence over magistrates within some courts of law and that they could determine them to pronounce decisions favorable to the witness in a criminal law case in which he was tried. After several negotiations, the amount allegedly claimed by the defendants was reduced to EUR 600,000 plus VAT, and it was agreed that it would be remitted in three equal instalments. In the above-mentioned context, during the same period, the witness would have remitted to the three defendants a partial payment in the amount of approximately EUR 100,000,” DNA claims.
In the case, criminal prosecution acts are also carried out against other legal entities regarding the commission of the crime of money laundering.
Businessman Catalin Hideg, who denounced former SRI generals Florian Coldea and Dumitru Dumbrava to the DNA, said on Thursday, in an intervention on Antena 3 private television broadcaster, that they had asked him, through lawyer Doru Traila, the sum of 600,000 euros to help him obtain a suspended sentence, in a case in which he has a first instance sentence of 4 years in prison for fraud with European funds.
Catalin Hideg, the owner of Sanimed International, was sentenced in February by the Bucharest Court to four years in prison for using false documents and money laundering, in a case linked to fraud with European funds worth three million euros.
The case is currently under appeal to the Bucharest Court of Appeal.
In exchange for the money, Hideg was promised to „optimize his problems in justice”, that is, to receive a suspended sentence.
„When I concluded the contract, they told me that if things went well in the court of first instance and the judge, who used to be a student of Mr. Traila, would give a positive resolution, at the Court of Appeal it would be simpler and that we would decrease those years,” Hideg said.
Catalin Hideg also claimed that he paid a first installment of 100,000 euros, but had no money left, after which he was threatened to pay the rest of the amount.
He admitted to filing a denunciation with DNA and more than 20 records with „clear evidence” against those who threatened him.
On the other hand, Hideg confessed that he has no evidence that the money he gave to lawyer Traila would have reached former SRI generals.
AGERPRES
