Info Sud-Est traced the identifying details on the “diplomatic ID” found by DIICOT prosecutors at the home of pro-Russian Călin Georgescu to a clone organization of the Order of Malta — one that has no official recognition but claims the historical legacy of the Knights Hospitaller and even uses the same misspelling of the word “Hospitaller” that appears on the document seized from the home of the former pro-Russian candidate in Romania’s 2024 presidential election.
The discovery comes after Georgescu’s recent detention in a fraud case involving an alleged scam of more than one million euros, which triggered a wave of controversies in the public sphere. One of those controversies revolves around an ID card that describes Georgescu as a “Knight of Malta” while also assigning him titles such as “senator” and “prior of the USA.”
The genuine Sovereign Order of Malta has categorically disavowed the document and even the title of “senator” raises questions: neither the Sovereign Order of Malta nor the Republic of Malta has a Senate, as Malta’s parliament is unicameral.
Georgescu’s name does, however, appear in the records of an organization identified by Info Sud-Est which representatives of the genuine Order include among the “mimetic” organizations that use the Order of Malta’s name, symbols and traditions to mislead the public.
From there, a parallel world of self-styled orders and organizations emerges — groups around which, for more than three decades, individuals involved in controversial business dealings, fraud cases and the issuing of documents with purported diplomatic status have appeared, from Romania to Switzerland and the United States.
Who issued Georgescu’s “diplomatic ID”
The Order of Malta described the ID found at Georgescu’s home as a complete fabrication. The document does, however, appear in a public database bearing the name and logo of the so-called “Sovereign Order Hospitalliers of Saint John of Jerusalem – O.S.J.”
Entering the serial number printed on Georgescu’s document (L120052) into the database brings up a profile bearing his name, alongside a photograph of the former presidential candidate and details including his Romanian citizenship, date of birth, height, eye color and the claim that he belongs to the “Legal advice” department of this organization.
The document is listed as valid from May 15, 2025 to April 7, 2030, while May 2025 is also the month of issue printed on the physical ID found by prosecutors at his residence.
At the top of the page there is even a bizarre, conspiratorial warning written in Romanian: “Stop attacking this account. Your actions constitute a violation of the law. All IP addresses are recorded!”
The profile also contains a link to a “legal notice” claiming that the person identified is “under the protection of the Order,” that documents issued by it are legal and that the holder enjoys rights provided for under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The text goes even further, calling on “all states, ministries and authorities” to provide the purported “diplomatic person” with assistance in carrying out their activities and not to obstruct their freedom of movement.
- Note: Shortly after Info Sud-Est journalists accessed the website, it became unavailable. The original page has since been replaced by the message: “Forbidden. You don’t have permission to access this resource.” According to Cloudflare, errors of this type (HTTP 403) can be caused by the blocking of specific IP addresses or IP ranges. Another possible explanation is geoblocking, meaning access is restricted based on the country from which the connection originates, as explained by Amazon Web Services. Several ISE readers and other internet users have told us that they are still able to access the website.
Another important detail is that beneath the database search bar, the organization displays its name, a contact address and the wording “Uff. amm. 6210 Sežana.”
“Uff. amm.” is the Italian abbreviation for ufficio amministrativo (“administrative office”), while 6210 is the postal code for the town of Sežana in Slovenia.
The only website identified by Info Sud-Est that also displays this information is called “Knights of Malta” and presents itself as the website of the “Sovereign Order of the Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem – Knights of Malta – O.S.J.”
The organization claims direct historical continuity with the old Order of St John and, notably, their website also occasionally uses the spelling “Hospitalliers,” with an extra “i” — the same misspelling that appears on Georgescu’s ID.
The website also claims that the group is a “subject of international law” and a “sovereign order.” It attributes to itself historical headquarters stretching from Jerusalem and Malta to Saint Petersburg and the United States, while currently listing contact points in New York and Sežana, Slovenia, including a post-office box.
This organization is obviously not part of the alliance of mutually recognized Orders of St John that still operate to this day.
Furthermore, the contact numbers displayed on the “Knights of Malta” website, one of them for a phone in Italy and the other in Slovenia, are not operational. By the time of the publication of this article, requests for comment sent by ISE journalists to the email addresses available on the organization’s websites had received no response.
The group’s public trail, however, goes back at least three and a half decades and links it to figures who have surfaced over the years in controversial business dealings, smuggling cases and, more recently, financial fraud.
The earliest mention of the order in an independent source found by ISE dates to 1991, when the California newspaper Los Angeles Times identified a man named Arnaldo Petrucci as the leader of the New York-based “Knights of Malta, O.S.J.”
At the time, Petrucci reportedly acted as an intermediary in talks aimed at securing financing for controversial Italian businessman Giancarlo Parretti’s purchase of the MGM studio, and later supossedly admitted Parretti into the organization following a substantial donation.
There were no direct allegations of fraud against the New York order itself, but the Los Angeles Times noted even then that the „knights” in New York had no institutional connection whatsoever with the genuine Order of Malta.
Petrucci also appears on the “Knights of Malta” website as the 74th “Grand Master” of the O.S.J. order.
The same website has a separate page devoted to Luciano Angelo Lonardoni, whose name appears on one of the documents attributed to O.S.J. that were found at Călin Georgescu’s home, according to information obtained by G4Media.
Lonardoni was first mentioned by the Romanian media as early as the 1990s in connection with the so-called “Jimbolia Affair,” one of the most notorious smuggling cases in post-communist Romania, in which petroleum products were allegedly transported clandestinely to the former Yugoslavia, which was under a UN embargo at the time.
In a 2006 article, HotNews listed Lonardoni among the individuals involved in the fuel shipments and reported that he and other Italians presented themselves in Romania as “Knights of Malta.”
The publication also reported that Lonardoni allegedly negotiated with the Serbian side and took a direct part in the transport operation.
The name of the O.S.J. order has surfaced in various controversial cases over the past several decades, and there is at least one episode in which the fraudulent use of symbols and titles associated with the Knights of Malta became a central element in a financial fraud case.
The case took place in Switzerland, where an association bearing the exact name “Sovereign Order Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem – Knights of Malta O.S.J.” was registered in Lugano in December 2020.
The Swiss commercial register identifies Italian citizen Fabio De Luca as its president, the same person associated with a company called H24.
In 2024, the Italian writing Swiss newspaper Corriere del Ticino reported that a 58-year-old Italian man behind H24 was on trial for allegedly defrauding nine people of more than four million Swiss francs (approximatively 4 million euros).
Prosecutors alleged that he had built up his credibility partly by presenting himself as a “Knight of Malta” and by establishing the O.S.J. association.
At the entrance to the building housing his organization, its name and a white eight-pointed Maltese cross on a red background, a symbol also used by the genuine Order of Malta, were displayed. The Swiss Association of the Sovereign Order of Malta told the publication that De Luca’s organization had no connection to the Order and that the use of the symbol was unauthorized.
Moreover, in one of the episodes described by the prosecution, the defendant allegedly presented himself as a Knight of Malta to a person with a strong interest in the Order’s history, who ultimately entrusted him with approximately two million Swiss francs.
De Luca was ultimately sentenced in September 2024 to five and a half years in prison for fraud, according to the newspaper laRegione.
The Knights of Malta disavowed Georgescu
Some of Călin Georgescu’s supporters mocked journalists who supposedly “did not understand” what the Order of Malta actually was, while others accused DIICOT prosecutors of having “planted” false documents at the former pro-Russian presidential candidate’s residence in order to discredit him.
In reality, as previously reported, the Embassy of the Order of Malta in Romania publicly disavowed the ID, stated that Georgescu is not a member of the Order and described the document as “entirely forged.”
It also warned about the existence of “mimetic” organizations that use the Knights’ image to mislead the public.
Against this background, Georgescu’s ID appears to have been issued by the so-called “Sovereign Order Hospitalliers of Saint John of Jerusalem – O.S.J.”, an organization distinct from the genuine Sovereign Military Order of Malta, but which uses a nearly identical name and symbolism.
Notably, however, on the ID found at Georgescu’s home, the word “Hospitallers” is misspelled with an extra “i.”
Fraud behind the clone orders
As far as legitimate orders are concerned, there are only four other Orders of St John in the world, all Christian, but not Catholic, that are officially recognized and cooperate with the Order of Malta:
- The Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem — the British order, under the patronage of the British Crown and associated with the St John Ambulance network.
- Die Balley Brandenburg des Ritterlichen Ordens Sankt Johannis vom Spital zu Jerusalem — also known as the Johanniterorden, the German branch of the St John order tradition.
- Johanniter Orde in Nederland — the Dutch Order of St John.
- Johanniterorden i Sverige — the Swedish Order of St John.
The alliance of historical orders has repeatedly issued warnings about self-styled organizations that use similar names and symbols in order to create the appearance of a connection with the tradition of the Knights Hospitaller.
As early as 2024, the Embassy of the Order of Malta in Romania stated that the five orders do not recognize the claims made by such organizations that they are successors to the medieval order.
In fact, there is at least one case in which the Order of Malta directly challenged the misleading use of Hospitaller imagery by an organization using the abbreviation “O.S.J.”
According to the Grand Priory of Austria, in 2002 the Hamburg Regional Court prohibited an organization called “Knights of Malta-Sovereign Order of Hospitallers of Saint John of Jerusalem O.S.J. USA – Section Germany” from using the name of the Order of Malta in its commercial activities.
The same source associates the organization with the marketing of “dubious financial products” and separately lists other O.S.J. organizations involved in issuing documents and “diplomatic passports” or in the unauthorized use of the Order’s symbols.
One particularly significant detail is that one of the most recent updates on the Grand Priory of Austria’s website, published in December 2025, mentions a man named Michael Lewalder, who presented himself as an O.S.J. representative using titles such as “Great Chancellor” and “Executive Advisor to the Grand Master.”
According to the Austrian Grand Priory, he allegedly attempted to arrange the printing of “documents” and “service passports” both for O.S.J. and for an organization called the European Asian Trade Mission (EATM).
Among the documents found at Georgescu’s residence was also a “service passport” issued by EATM, as G4Media previously reported.
Who are the Knights Hospitaller?
The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, headquartered in Rome, is one of the oldest charitable and humanitarian organizations still active internationally.
Its origins lie in 11th-century Jerusalem, where a religious community operated a hospital for sick and impoverished pilgrims.
The Order was officially recognized by Pope Paschal II in 1113 and later also assumed a military role in the context of the Crusades.
After Christian territories in the Holy Land were lost, the Knights first settled on the Greek island of Rhodes and, from 1530 onward, on Malta – hence the commonly used short name “The Order of Malta.”
For several centuries, the Order exercised significant military and political influence in the Mediterranean, but this role gradually disappeared.
The decisive moment came in 1798, when Napoleon Bonaparte occupied Malta and the Knights were forced to leave the island.
The Order never regained its territory and, after several temporary headquarters, permanently settled in Rome in 1834, at which point it returned to its original mission: caring for the sick, the poor and vulnerable people.
Today, the word “military” remains in its name for historical reasons, but the Order’s activities are now almost entirely medical, social and humanitarian.
The organization provides medical and emergency services, support for refugees and vulnerable people, and assistance in areas affected by war or natural disasters around the world.
At the same time, the Order remains a Catholic religious institution with direct ties to the Holy See and is recognized by the European Union as a “sovereign subject of international law.”
This status allows it to maintain diplomatic relations with states and international organizations.
Romania has maintained diplomatic relations with the Order since 1932, with embassy-level relations restored in 1991, according to an official publication of Romania’s Ministry of Research.
The Order has also held observer status at the United Nations General Assembly since 1994.
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