Presidential candidate Călin Georgescu made a fortune from real estate businesses in Romania and Austria, where he purchased several properties, a journalistic investigation shows.
Călin Georgescu and one of the properties in Austria. Source: Facebook / Rise Project
A journalistic investigation provides details about the profitable real estate deals made in the past by Călin Georgescu. According to the publication, the Georgescu family spent several years in Austria, where they invested hundreds of thousands of euros in real estate.
“The first time, the Georgescu family sold a villa in Corbeanca. The price? 1 million euros. The buyer was a key figure in the Radu Mazăre-Nicușor Constantinescu group, the PSD tandem that ruled Constanța County at the time and is now serving many years in prison for corruption. A few months later, the same businessman also bought the Titan apartment of Călin Georgescu’s parents. In parallel, the Georgescu family started to make real estate purchases in Austria”, informs Rise Project, in the article “How Călin Georgescu made the first million with the Mazăre group”.
Over 500,000 euros, invested in 2011 in Austria
Romanian investigative journalists, together with those of the Austrian publication Profil, identified some of the purchases made by the Georgescu couple starting in 2011.
“The first transaction takes place on June 5, 2011, when the Georgescu family signs a sales contract for an apartment worth 110,000 euros, in a town near Vienna. At this moment, Călin Georgescu begins his second year of activity in the position of rapporteur at the UN. The satellite images suggest that the old building, which the Georgescu family bought, was demolished and a new villa was built in its place.” shows the cited source.
Five months later, on November 3, 2011, the Georgescu couple bought their second property in Austria.
“It is about a villa for which I pay 410,000 euros. The property is located in Alland, a picturesque town spread over wooded hills only 30 kilometers from Vienna, the capital of Austria”the journalists show.
Villa in Austria, with money from real estate business in Romania
The documents obtained by RISE and the chronology of the transactions suggest that part of the money would have come from Romania, where the Georgescu couple made their first million euros with another real estate transaction. The money came from Husein Ozghen, who, according to journalists, was close to the PSD Radu Mazăre – Nicușor Constantinescu tandem, a group that counts heavy years in prison for corruption, many illegal retrocessions and real estate combinations on the coast.
“On July 25, 2011, the businessman Husein Ozghen, close to the group from Constanța, buys a real estate property for 4.27 million RON (almost 1 million euros), and the money is collected by Cristela Georgescu, the wife of the presidential candidate. It was a villa in Corbeanca of 126 square meters and a plot of 533 square meters. In the history of this property, Andrei Deak appears from whom Cristela Georgescu had purchased a property for only 23,000 euros in 2006”, the quoted source added..
Contacted by phone by journalists of the media platform, Andrei Deak confirmed the transaction. According to the investigation, Andrei Deak was born in Moscow, in the USSR, but lives in Romania. According to CNSAS, he was recruited in 1979 by the Securitate and signed a commitment while he was a tourist guide in the BTT state agency.
Four months later, on November 10, 2011, Husein Ozghen purchased another home from Aneta Georgescu, Călin Georgescu’s mother, a three-room apartment in the Titan neighborhood, for 100,000 euros.
Contacted by Rise Project journalists, Husein Ozghen (73 years old), said that it was a pure coincidence that he bought both the house in Corbeanca and the apartment in Titan from Georgescu. He claims that he did not know him and does not know that he was close to the Mazare group. And 1 million euros does not seem like much to him.
“It was a good price, it was a villa in Corbeanca, I didn’t know Georgescu. I don’t know if he knew anyone else from Constanța”, said Husein Ozghen.
The publication notes that in July 2017, the Georgescu family sold the villa they bought in 2011 for double the purchase price – 950,000 euros. Then, after a few days, the two bought a house with land and a pool on the edge of a wooded neighborhood in Günselsdorf., for 530,000 euros.
In 2021, the Georgescu couple also sold this property for 599,000 euros and returned to Romania.
“It’s just not clear what happened to the million euros, which should have remained after these transactions. The wealth declaration submitted to the Central Electoral Bureau this year, upon entering the race for Cotroceni, presents a significantly more modest financial situation”, the investigation shows.
