The trio of customs officers investigated by the DNA in Monday’s raids at the Port of Constanța consists of Aurelian Pilcă – Eugen Bogatu – Ion Dumitru, who set up their company Sea Container Services Sea Container Services with the former Radu Mazăre administration in 2000. The company is accused by DNA prosecutors of bribery.
Pilcă and Bogatu have been investigated before in the early 2000s, with Pilcă acquitted in 2011 and Bogatu sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in 2015. Ziua de Constanța wrote in 2015 about the influence of the Pilcă-Bogatu-Făinărea trio (associated in firms with the two) in the Port of Constanța and the web of connections in Constanta’s customs. Details, here.
The company Sea Container Services, targeted by the prosecutors’ investigation, was established in 2000, the year Radu Mazăre won the Constanța City Hall, and the company Stone Group is also part of the shareholders.
According to G4Media and ISE, the DNA prosecutors are also targeting three other companies owned by the trio of former customs officers, set up in 2004 and 2006, during the most flourishing period of the Mazăre-Constantinescu era.
Context
The DNA is conducting 41 searches in the Port of Constanta and other locations (Eforie, Bucharest, Năvodari, etc.), according to Info Sud-Est reporting. The investigation is targeting influential local businessmen, influential former customs officers in the Port and one of the heads of PSD Constanta, Ion Dumitrache, as well as George Vishan, commercial director in the Port of Constanța, the one who makes the decisions when the current director of the port is missing and a close relative of the former local administration Radu Mazăre – Nicușor Constantinescu.
The charges brought forward by the prosecutors are giving, taking bribes and abuse of office. The alleged bribes amounted to almost €7 million, according to G4Media and ISE, money allegedly traded for benefits, land, berths and contracts in the Port of Constanta. Prosecutors used undercover officers, according to G4Media and ISE sources.
- Three DNA prosecutors allegedly worked on the investigation for several months, during which they infiltrated undercover officers in the Port of Constanța, who would have taken the alleged bribes from officials, businessmen, politicians, etc. The prosecutors who worked on the investigation, according to G4Media and ISE sources, are Viorel Cerbu, Ionuț Ardeleanu and Petrică Popa.
The commercial director of the Port of Constanta, George Vișan, is a well-known local figure from the Radu Mazăre era, with close relations with the current leadership of the local PSD organization. He is alleged to have agreed to share a bribe for allocating land to the undercover DNA officer, according to G4Media and ISE.
Boskalis, Van Oord Dredging and Marine Contractors B.V. Rotterdam (Constanța branch) and the former head of the Coast Guard, policeman Ionuț Voinescu, are also allegedly targeted in the case, all for bribery. The Boskalis and Van Oord companies managed beach extension projects on the Romanian coast, totaling more than €1 billion of EU money.
The DNA prosecutors’ investigation would also target Ion Dumitrache, the head of the PSD municipality, according to political sources consulted by G4Media, as well as influential local businessmen and former customs officers, and officials from the National Company Administration of Maritime Ports Constanta (CN APMC).
According to information from G4Media and ISE, it is the trio Pilcă-Bogatu-Dumitru, known locally for the influence they exert in Constanta Customs. According to G4Media and ISE, one of Pilcă and Bogatu’s „negotiations” allegedly took place at the Fishermen’s Bay in Agigea, owned by the son-in-law of PSD mayor Cristian Cârjaliu, who was indicted by the DNA in 2020 for abusive expropriation and acquitted in the first instance by the Constanța Court. On January 16, 2025, the Constanța Court of Appeals decided that the case should be sent back to the Tribunal for retrial. Read more here.
- Aurelian Pilcă and Eugen Bogatu have been in criminal trouble before. Pilcă was acquitted in 2011, and in another case, Eugen Bogatu was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison in 2015. G4Media and ISE showed in September 2023 how DNA has only finalized one case with a prison sentence in the last 20 years. In other cases, courts have handed down acquittals or suspended prison sentences.
Among the businessmen under investigation are Vasile Costea and Jean Paul Tucan, a former candidate for the Năvodari mayor’s office, according to G4Media and ISE. Vasile Costea is a well known local businessman, „raised” in the Mazăre era, who was also indicted for bribing the former head of the Constanța Court of Appeals, Nicolae Stanciu, father of former Constanța DNA chief Mihai Stanciu. Vasile Costea and Nicolae Stanciu were fully acquitted in 2022.
Vasile Costea, DNA prosecutors allege, allegedly had a whole strategy and a complex bribery circuit to obtain various benefits in the Port of Constanța. According to information from G4Media and ISE, Costea allegedly gave among the largest sums of money to undercover DNA officers. Vasile Costea’s best-known firm, ABC Val, has been a subscriber to public money since Radu Mazăre’s time. Read the details here.
According to G4Media and ISE sources, Vasile Costea had the support of a close relative, an official in the company that manages the Port of Constanța, Cătălin Viorel Cristea, with whom he allegedly had a relationship of over 30 years.
- Economedia.ro showed, in April 2023, how the private company JT Oil Terminal Constanta, controlled by the Constanta businessman Jean-Paul Tucan, auctioned in SICAP a contract worth 96 million lei – own funds and money attracted from the EU – for the construction of a new oil terminal in Constanta, with an operating capacity of 1 million tons per year, which should be ready within a maximum of two years from the signing of the contract with the general contractor, i.e. in mid-2025. Read details on Economedia.ro.
According to information from G4Media and ISE, the dossier would also target Emil Banias, the brother of former senator Mircea Banias, who has changed six parties in the last 20 years and who consolidated his political career in the early 2000s in the Traian Băsescu – Elena Udrea area. Mircea Banias was the head of the Constanța Port and a parliamentarian for 16 years. Together with Cristina Dumitrache, he was the longest-serving parliamentarian from southeastern Romania who, like the daughter of the Constanta PSD chief, lost the general election in June of 2024.
The Port of Constanța’s response
The company that manages the Port of Constanta has transmitted, at the request of G4Media and ISE, that the current management is „providing DNA prosecutors with all the requested documents, all the information necessary to support the investigation”:
- „Concerning the DNA action triggered this morning in the Port of Constanța, we inform you that the Administration of Sea Ports provides all the necessary support to the judicial bodies. The General Manager and the Financial Director are providing the DNA prosecutors with all the requested documents and all the necessary information to support the investigation. Any information on this subject can only be provided, in accordance with the law, by the authorized institutions. The company’s management reaffirms its determination not to accept any deviation from legality and will always take the appropriate measures in accordance with the provisions of the judicial authorities”, is the response sent by CN APMC to G4Media and ISE.
The case is being investigated by DNA prosecutors in Bucharest and represents one of the most important actions in the Port of Constanța.
this news story is still being updated
Context
G4Media and the ISE showed in September 2023 how only one case investigated by DNA in the Port of Constanta has been finalized with a prison sentence for the defendants in the entire history of the institution. In all these years, DNA has prosecuted several defendants in other cases, but they have either been acquitted, received suspended sentences or the cases are still pending in court.
- Please note that the documentation only covers offenses committed in the Port of Constanța, not cases involving the municipality or county of Constanța.
In 2015, former customs officer and port director Eugen Bogatu received 2 years and six months in prison with enforcement for favoring a criminal and influence peddling in a case involving illegal VAT refunds. Three others went to prison with him. Otherwise, over the past 20 years, DNA prosecutors have raided the harbor on several occasions and investigated high-profile cases, but in the end they did not convince the judges.
From the „Fleet„, with 80 defendants, including Traian Băsescu, to the case known as „Port of Constanța„, in which 39 defendants were indicted, including a senator, Mircea Banias, brother of Emil Banias, who was the target of Monday’s action, and port bosses, the big anti-corruption cases in the port were closed and all the defendants acquitted. There is only one exception: that of the director of the Port Domains Directorate Eugen Bogatu, who claimed a 20 billion old lei bribe.
One of the most recent cases in the Port, which has not yet received a verdict, is that of the stenograms from the office of former USR minister Cătălin Drulă, in which two influential liberals allegedly tried to intervene with the minister to keep the heads of the Romanian Association for the Rescue of Human Lives at Sea (ARSVOM) and the Lower Danube River Administration in Galați.
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