Rise Project announces the existence of “Teleorman Leaks”. A suitcase with key information from inside the Tel Drum corporation was found in the rural area of the Teleorman County; the suitcase seems to contain documents, phone numbers, e-mails, photos and videos. Reaction

Rise Project announced on Saturday evening, through a Facebook post entitled ##Teleormanleaks, that a suitcase with key information from inside the Tel Drum corporation, to which the prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) had no access during searches, was found in the rural area of the Teleorman County. The suitcase allegedly contains thousands of documents, phone numbers, e-mails, photos and videos from the company’s events. “We inform you that «Teleorman Leaks» exists. A suitcase with key information from inside the Tel Drum corporation, to which the DNA prosecutors had no access when they made searches on the company’s premises and computers, last year, was found in the rural area of the Teleorman County, by a local, right on his property. The local contacted a Rise Project source in the county” is the message posted by Rise Project on Sunday evening on their Facebook page, entitled #Teleormanleaks. According to the Facebook message, the suitcase allegedly contains “a black hard disk in which all the 63.39 GB content from a key person from Tel Drum was saved”, as well as thousands of invoices, contracts, balance sheets, estimates, proxies, articles of incorporation of ghost companies, statements of account, payment orders. Moreover, the suitcase seems to contain “personal documents of intermediaries”, audit reports, accounting tables, 14,800 photos and videos from the company’s events, documents, selfies, screenshots with talks – most of them from the backup of several phone devices. Also, according to Rise Project, the suitcase contains 54,710 e-mails and attachments from the office e-mail address, as well as an agenda with almost one thousand phone numbers. “The agenda contains 980 phone numbers collected in the recent years: «Basescu», «Hrebe», «Dancila», «Banicioiu», «Pieleanu». One of them is different, being written with a pause between capital letters:  «L I V I U»”, reads the message posted by Rise Project. Besides, there are copies in the suitcase of some personal documents of the Dragnea family; Rise Project published a copy of the Baccalaureate Diploma belonging to Dragnea N.L. Valentin Stefan. In November 2017, Liviu Dragnea was indicted in the Tel Drum case, for forming an organized criminal group, for using or presenting in bad faith false, inaccurate or uncomplete documents or statements, as well as for abuse of office and obtaining undue benefits for himself or for another person. According to prosecutors, Liviu Dragnea, in his capacity of the Chairman of the Teleorman County Council, formed an organized criminal group which is acting even today, which consisted and still consists of public servants working in the institutions of the public administration, as well as people in the business sector. The group was initiated in 2001 and its goal was to fraudulently obtain important amounts of money from the contracts funded from public funds, by committing offenses of abuse of office, by defrauding EU funds, by tax evasion, money laundering and using information not intended to be published or by granting access to such information to unauthorized people, the DNA prosecutors claim. The damage caused by abuse of office in this case amounts RON 30 million, and the damage caused by defrauding the EU funds amounts RON 20 million. DNA also announced that the assets of the PSD Chairman Liviu Dragnea were subject to a precautionary seizure and a garnishment, up to the amount of more than RON 127.5 million, in the Tel Drum case. Thus, the DNA prosecutors ordered the precautionary seizure and garnishment up to the amount of RON 127,547,366.34 on all of the PSD Chairman Liviu Dragnea’s movable and immovable assets, stocks and shares he holds in the capital of the private legal persons, on his amounts of money in the bank accounts, as well as on the amount of money   owed to him with any title by third parties, including the amounts of money owed as rent. Liviu Dragnea challenged this measure also at the end of the last year, but the court rejected his request. The lawyer of the PSD leader, Maria Vasii, claimed that no institution requested to be introduced as a civil party in this case, and therefore, since no one claimed any damage, the prosecutor wasn’t entitled to order precautionary measures. “We challenged the ordinance by which the precautionary measures were established, since it was issued by the prosecutor by not observing some essential forms required b the law. For instance, the precautionary measure was justified by Mrs. Prosecutor by the need to seize the necessary assets for covering the damages, the prejudice. No one asked to be introduced in the case as civil party, therefore no one claimed any damage until today. The prosecutor is not entitled to establish the seizure ex officio, in the absence of a civil party that claims these damages”, Lawyer Maria Vasii stated. Furthermore, she said that the seizure was established “by ear”, since the PSD Chairman’s assets weren’t evaluated. On January 17, 2018, DNA announced it ordered precautionary measures on all the Tel Drum’s movable and immovable assets, as well as the garnishment on the existing amounts of money or those to be paid by third parties, with ay title, in the bank accounts held by the company, up to the amount of RON 32,118,589.51 (representing the undue benefits and the tax liabilities that should have been paid to the state). On the same date, DNA announced the extension of the criminal prosecution on the company, which is investigated for forming an organized criminal group, for tax evasion in continuous form and for complicity in abuse of office.   Reactions to TeleormanLeaks   Dragnea, about the suitcase with documents about which Rise Project wrote: It’s a donut, it has nothing to do with me, I ‘m not interested in it   On Monday, PSD Chairman Liviu Dragnea came with two suitcases at the PSD Executive Committee (CEx) meeting – saying that one of them was containing “donuts from Rise Project” (e.n. – donut = lie), and the other one was containing “files” about the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania (FDRG)...