The NGO that supports Mircea Geoană received, in May, 50,000 euros from a company in Bulgaria, controlled by a businessman convicted of fraud, who is on the list of fugitives.
Mircea Geoană, candidate for the presidency of Romania
Even though Mircea Geoană officially entered the campaign for the presidential elections in September, the NGO that supports him, Asociația Mișcarea Ţara Renaște, prepared in time for the elections. As early as May, the NGO received an important funding of 50,000 euros from an obscure Bulgarian company, Ausenco Ltd.
“In Romania, Gabriela Știube is the owner of Hajdu Trade Group, a company based in Oradea that sells food products: flour, oil and sugar. In 2017, Gabriela Știube took over the firm from Mahmoud Lakkis, a Lebanese with Romanian citizenship, who escaped charges of involvement in an organized criminal group and tax evasion after the statute of limitations. The case involved Bulgarian shell companies and has ramifications in top politics.
In Bulgaria, the company that transferred 50,000 euros to the NGO behind Mircea Geoană is registered at the headquarters of an accounting firm, in the same building as the Bulgarian SRL used by the Murfatlar group, accused in a mega-file of damage of 47 million euros”, write context.ro.
Ionel Șiube specified that he was the one who actually controlled the Bulgarian company, not Gabriela Șiube. “I gave him 50 thousand euros, unfortunately he gave it back to me and I was a little angry, because I really wanted Mircea Geoană to win”. specified Șiube, who mentioned that the money from the Bulgarian company was transferred from Israel.
The Bulgarian company controlled by Șiube paid the 50,000 euros on May 28. The association supporting Geoană returned the money two months later, on July 24.
Dumitru Borțun, the president of the NGO, stated that the money was returned because there was no contract. “I inquired and found that it was some money that I returned, because I did not know the source and had no legal relationship with it. That’s why I didn’t know at first what money you were referring to. It was a sum of 50,000 euros, received from a company registered in Bulgaria, with which our association had not concluded any contract. Thus, we drew up a Payment Order for restitution”stated Dumitru Borțun for context.ro.
The Association Mișcarea Țara Renaște says that the money was not used in Mircea Geoană’s campaign and that all the funding received for the campaign complies with the law.
Mircea Geoană is also the one who received a loan of approximately 100,000 euros from the controversial Cluj businessman Nelu Varga. He explained that Geoană promised him that he would return the money in December and that he lent it to him by virtue of the friendship they have had for decades.
Nelu Varga is associated in a company with the son of the former president of the Neamț County Council, Ionel Arsene, the latter having fled the country after being sentenced to 6 years in prison with execution for influence peddling.
Varga was also acquitted in the case regarding the retrocession of 40,000 hectares of forest, in which Viorel Hrebenciuc was initially sentenced to two years in prison with execution.
Information also appeared in the press that Rareș Mănescu became a business partner with a Russian propagandist while he was still working for Mircea Geoană, while he was still deputy at NATO. The Mănescus also donated, in 2023, over 14,000 euros to the foundation whose president is Mircea Geoana’s wife, Mihaela Geoana.
