Ruling Party Treasurer Investigated for Second Embezzlement Offence

In a statement, case prosecutors announced that they suspect the treasurer used party funds to buy a luxury automobile worth RON324,000 in July 2017, which was sold one week later to one of his relatives. The party received funds from the sale more than one year after it was completed, in August 2018.

The agency initially announced on April 2 that Draghici is suspected of embezzling funds received by the party as part of its state subvention, which he used to pay for a property.

Anticorruption prosecutors suspect that Draghici used EUR380,000 from the party’s subvention to pay for renting a property, through the means of a “simulated contract” which allowedthe treasurer to use the funds for other means than they were intended for.

The act allegedly happened during February 2018, when Mircea Draghici and one his family members agreed to buy a property valued at more than EUR500,000 under the guise of renting it for a 10-year period, with a promise to buy at the end of the contract, according to prosecutors. The rent contract stipulated a EUR38,000 down payment and 18 monthly payments of at least EUR19,000.

Prosecutors say that, in fact, the entire value of the contract was paid in advance during a five-month period, using funds from the party’s subvention.

The rent contract and the promise to buy were both terminated after the Romania’s Permanent Electoral Authority launched an investigation into the use of the party’s subvention, according to DNA. The inquiry was interrupted after the appointment of a new agency chairman supported by the party, Constantin Mituletu-Buica, earlier in 2019. He argued that the inquiry was cancelled as new checks had to be made in collaboration with the Court of Accounts this summer.

Draghici denied the accusations in a Facebook post following the DNA statement, commenting that prosecutors “cannot determine in what terms, at what price and for how long a party can rent a property”.

As party treasurer, Mircea Draghici manages goods and funds received by the group from public or private funds.

The PSD treasurer is currently in charge of the party’s electoral campaigns, and was formerly nominated by Prime Minister Viorica Dancila for the office of transports minister in late 2018 and early 2019, but withdrew his nomination following several rejections from President Klaus Iohannis.

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