Approximately 66,000 tons of oil may have been brought into Romania through the Port of Constanța using forged documents, as part of a smuggling and tax fraud scheme that caused estimated losses of nearly RON 80 million since 2023.
DIICOT prosecutors conducted 46 searches in several counties in connection with the case on Friday, November 13, targeting people in the management of the state-owned company Oil Terminal, customs officials, and employees of anti-fraud structures.
“The case investigated by DIICOT primarily concerns the evasion of tax obligations (the payment of VAT and excise duties) by the companies involved in the criminal scheme,” according to a press release.
Among those questioned was Gabriel Daraban, former commercial director of Oil Terminal, according to Digi24.
Daraban, who resigned one day before the searches, was detained following the hearings.
According to investigators, the criminal group was allegedly established in 2023 and devised a complex mechanism to bring oil into Romania and avoid paying the taxes and duties applicable to the trade in gasoline and diesel fuel. The alleged scheme involved two companies from Malta and Switzerland, with fictitious invoices and other commercial transactions being used to evade tax obligations.
DIICOT stressed that the evidence gathered so far has not established that the excisable product (diesel fuel) originated from distributors located in the Russian Federation, as initially suspected.
In reply, Oil Terminal said it had provided investigators with documents from 2025 and specified that no searches had taken place at the company’s headquarters, which does not have procedural status in the case.
“The company has no procedural status in this criminal case, being involved exclusively as an entity providing the criminal investigation authorities with documents necessary to clarify the facts,” Oil Terminal said in a statement sent to the Bucharest Stock Exchange.
Asked at the briefing following the government meeting whether state institutions had carried out inspections during the period covered by the investigation, government spokesperson Dan Cărbunaru said he could not comment on an ongoing judicial proceeding.
“What I can assure you is that, following checks with the institutions you are referring to, we will provide precise information on whether inspections were carried out during that period, what results they produced, and what types of sanctions were imposed,” Dan Cărbunaru said.
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