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Authorities in Romania have arrested a former senator who allegedly attempted to offer a 1 million euro bribe to the country's defense minister to facilitate an arms deal that could be fraudulently funded by a European Union program.
The deal in question is complicated: purchasing Russian-type shells in Kazakhstan, importing them to Romania, rebranding them as Romanian shells, and then selling them to Ukraine through an intermediary in Bulgaria.
The idea was to create a scheme for future business that could benefit from funding from the EU's Rearmament of Europe programme, which was launched in March to support arms production within the 27-member bloc.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Romanian Service spoke with two key figures involved in the case.
One of them said he was contacted by former senator Marius Ovidiu Isaila, while the other by a Bulgarian businessman named Roman Ivanov Angelov.
In early October, Angelov allegedly led a delegation that contacted the head of Romtehnica, the arms trading company representing Romania's Ministry of Defense, seeking to utilize its contacts in Kazakhstan.
"Suspicious" offer
"They proposed a deal to me," Romtehnica chief Razvan Mincu told Radio Free Europe. "We would take ammunition from Kazakhstan and resell it to them."
But Mincu said that the offer seemed "suspicious" to him and he had rejected the proposals.
According to a report by Romanian prosecutors, Isaila had approached a mediator in an attempt to bribe Defense Minister Ionut Mosteanu to facilitate the deal.
REL spoke with the intermediary, politician Octavian Berceanu, who became a whistleblower and made 17 secret recordings for law enforcement during his meetings with Isailan.
"This is about a group that wants to bring Russian or Russian-type ammunition to Romania, which can then be exported to Bulgaria and from there to Ukraine. All [purchased] with European Union money," he said.
"They offered me 10 million euros to join this group. This is the method, they offer large sums to politicians to recruit them."
Isailas' statements and transcripts of recordings made by Berceanu, published on November 10 by the Romanian website Gandul, suggest that he was working with others – often referred to as "we" and implying that large sums of money and political influence were involved.
At one point, he is quoted as saying: "I am the person who opens the door. And I open the door for you: NATO, the American Embassy, Germany."
In another exchange, he is quoted as saying to Berceanu: "Tell me how much you need and in the evening... within 24 hours, you will have all the money."
Isaila is also quoted as describing how the scheme worked. “We buy [the shells] from Kazakhstan, we disassemble them ourselves, we bring them here disassembled… we reassemble them, we paint them, we fix them, and the Romanian state sells them.”
"Billionaires overnight"
According to transcripts, Isaila also suggested that a similar scheme had already been implemented in Albania, and said that those involved in it “became billionaires overnight.” Albania’s Ministry of Defense and the anti-corruption authority did not respond to REL’s questions.
Romanian Defense Minister Mosteanu posted on social media that "a person tried to buy my influence with one million euros to facilitate a contract with Romtehnica. I categorically refused any meeting with that person."
Meanwhile, Isaila has been remanded in custody for 30 days, and the whereabouts of Bulgarian businessman Roman Angelov are unknown. Angelov is the sole shareholder in a company called Sofia Arm Tech, which last year received an international arms trade license.
Before that, the company had not recorded any activity in the documents it had submitted to Bulgaria's commercial register after its establishment in 2020. The records show that the company has eight employees.
Neither Angelov nor the company responded to questions from REL's Bulgarian Service./REL
Europa duke futur keta sllavet e lindjes e gabelet rumune ne BE ia futi vehtes aq shume sa sot po i djeg bytha. Keta qeneria e ruseve u turren drejt Europes e jane ulur kembekryq ne drejtim duke filluar qe nga zyrat e shtetit, bankat, kompanite e deri te zhulsat e haleve. Me e bukura kur thone qe do ua shtypim koken me krenari, sidomos ruset. C'mutin kane ruset e ruskat qe na ngjiten neper avione qe fluturojne drejt Shqiperise per te na bere "miq"... Pse i lejoni ruset te zbarkojne ne Shqiperi. Si ka mundesi qe ne plazhet tona talavizori nuk kap RTSH e stacione Shqiptare por vetem sllave? Mire kur ishte dhendrri Serbise ne fuqi, po ky Pozdravi ne krye i stervitur ne France si xhaxhi Dulla? Tirona ka pas 3 lloj Cunash Tirone. 1) Anglo-Amerikano filet qe preferonin Anglishten e Holliwood. 2) Ata kurvat qe simpatizonin Italishte e High Parade qe i quanim laxarela. 3) Pozdravet, ata qe vdisnin per muziken e basketbollin e Beogradit. O Skipeli qe me jep ndel e emlin Skipetal emlen ma gatove me lloj lloj jarge.