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Rise Project announces disclosure on Liviu Dragnea’s businesses
Journalists from Rise Project announced on Thursday they have a secret report of the Directorate General for Internal Protection (DGPI) - former DIPI, the Interior Ministry’s secret service, pointing to social-democrat - PSD - president Liviu Dragnea’s links to Tel Drum company and to controversial affairs of hundreds of millions of euros in Teleorman county.
The website, which made other previous disclosures on Dragnea’s alleged businesses in Brazil, claims that DGPI, former DIPI, monitored “Dragnea’s organization” before the Social Democrats had decided in Parliament that the Interior ministry’s ex-secret service should go under the absolute authority of Interior minister Carmen Dan.
As a proof, the journalists say they will release “a note on aspects affecting the social economic climate in Teleorman county”, where Liviu Dragnea’s and Calin Popescu Tariceanu’s names are explicitly mentioned. The report would contain information about the PSD chairman’s businesses, about Tel Drum, and about other illegal affairs worth hundreds of millions of euros in Teleorman.
Rise Project says that secret report mentions Dragnea as “the majority owner of the stakes at Tel Drum”. They asked Dragnea if he has ever held stakes there. “There is no such thing. Never. It’s in the Trade Register,” the PSD leader retorted.
Eventually later on in the evening, Rise Project published their investigation, revealing that Liviu Dragnea is indeed the majority stockholder of the shares to bearer at Tel Drum, but at sight, Tel Drum is managed by Dragnea’s friends, like businessman Marian Fiscuci, former deputy Adrian Simionescu, Dragnea’s brother-in-law, Florinel Marinas, former president of the National Road Company, Cristian Duica, Tel Drum general manager, Petre Pitis, tax revenue civil servants and local journalists.
According to the DGIPI report, Tel Drum would have illegally financed electoral campaigns involving Liviu Dragnea, in 2008-2009, when there were local, general and presidential elections.
Rise Project’s source was a former DGPI officer who worked for the case targeting Dragnea in 2011. He told the journalists that the PSD president “has people everywhere, in all institutions”. The former intelligence officer says the report on Dragnea was sent to the DGPI management , but at some point the investigation was dropped out and that the secret document has been in the service’s archive ever since.
In retort, the DGPI denied the “alleged” document would belong to the direction. “DGPI is fully denying eny attempt to involve the unit in political disputes,” DGPI says in a press release.
"The General Directorate for Internal Protection (DGPI) firmly rejects the allegations according to which the secret document would belong to the unit and, as a structure in charge with ensuring the coordination and control of activities for protecting classified information at MAI [Interior Ministry], it underscores that, in accordance with the legal provisions in force, this type of document is managed by the issuers," reads the release sent by the Information and Public Relation Department of the DGPI.
Moreover, the unit rejects any attempt to involve it in political disputes, according to the release.
After journalists from Rise Project posted on Facebook in the afternoon that the article will be published later on, anti-fraud inspectors conducted a sudden check at their editorial office.
“We have just been visited at our editorial office by the anti-fraud inspectors from the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF), a sudden check. One of them was Florin Tunaru, ANAF vice-president, was the PSD Teleorman treasurer and partner at Liviu Dragnea’s Foundation for Social Democrat Policies,” Rise Project said.
Social Democratic Party Chairman Liviu Dragnea requested on Thursday that the Minister of Finance and the Chairman of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) provide immediate explanations as to the presence of ANAF inspectors at the Rise Project headquarters, adding that he had was not involved in any way in this action.
"I found out from the press that ANAF inspectors raided the editorial office of Rise Project. Given that for a while now, they have been publishing news related to me, I would like to make the following statement: I have nothing to do with the presence of ANAF inspectors in the Rise Project editorial office, I am annoyed by what is going on, I have the feeling there attempts are being made to compromise me, the fact that a press institution is writing about a political figure should not bear any connections with the involvement of the state's institutions into the life of that press institution," reads a pres release sent by the PSD leader .
He says "this kind of behaviour existed during the presidential reign of bitter memories, when press institutions hostile to the regime were the target of its control institutions."