First case investigated by EPPO in Romania - 4-year prison sentence for businessman Catalin Hideg

The businessman Catalin Hideg, the owner of the company Sanimed International, was sentenced on Friday by the Bucharest court to four years in prison for using false documents and money laundering in a case linked to a fraud with European funds worth three million euros.In the same file, Sanimed International received as punishment a criminal fine of 500,000 lei and the closure of a workplace for three months.The tribunal decided that Hideg and Sanimed International Impex SRL to pay to the ministry of investments and European projects the sum of 14,440,459 lei.The decision is not final and can be appealed.   This is the first file investigated in Romania by the European People’s Public Office (EPPO) led by Laura Codruta Kovesi, the file being sent in court in October 2022.According to EPPO, the fraud against Catalin Hideg and Sanimed concerns the allocation of funds to a research and development centre in the field of medical recovery and biological reconstruction RECUMED.The RECUMED project, financed by EU, intended the creation of a research centre and in order to win an auction the businessman lodged several statements and false and inaccurate documents. They were connected to the procedure for awarding the contract for the supply of medical equipment and construction works required for the project.Between 2018 and 2020, the business man got non-refundable loans of over three million euro.However, he did not act in isolation, but in complicity with Raluca Ortensia Aelenei, the representative of a Spanish company that was to equip the rehabilitation centre and carry out the construction work, EPPO claims. Investigators suspect the two of making false declarations that they are not in a conflict of interest, and thus apparently fulfilled the legal requirements of transparency, legality and competition in the procurement procedure. Moreover, the contract award procedure was simulated by submitting fictitious counter-bids on behalf of other companies and by submitting false documents proving that the Spanish company fulfilled the eligibility conditions regarding the technical capacity to carry out the contract.   According to the prosecutors, the suspects did more and after getting European funds, the company in Romania transferred money in the company accounts in Spain. The sums got to other companies, with headquarters in Cyprus and Portugal and in the end a large part of the money came back to the initial beneficiary accounts in Romania by issuing false invoices.The inquiry showed that the real value of the equipments and medical products acquired for the project was almost four times lower than the stated one, and the initial prices for acquisition were negotiated and established by the first suspect. Later, the value of the products was over-estimated through successive transactions from the initial suppliers through companies in Cyprus, Portugal and Spain so that in the end to be sold to the beneficiary in Romania at over-evaluated prices.Raluca Ortensia Aelenei reached an agreement of pleading guilty with prosecutors and received a suspended sentence.Catalin Hideg became famous after one of his companies sold 1.7 million masks to the Romanian state at overpriced prices. The company was in the business of distributing alcoholic drinks and food.