Large-scale searches in several counties, including Dolj, to break up a cross-border organized crime group

This morning, the prosecutors of the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) – Timișoara Territorial Service, together with the police officers of the Directorate of Economic Crime Investigation within the IGPR and the Economic Crime Investigation Service of IPJ Arad, are implementing 79 home search warrants in the counties of Arad, Suceava, Dolj, Călărași, Sibiu, Iași, Teleorman, Mehedinți, Timiș, Braşov, Covasna, Argeş, Ilfov, Constanţa and the municipality of Bucharest, in a case aimed at the destruction of two domestic organized criminal groups, but with cross-border ramifications in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Ukraine, established for the purpose of committing the crimes of smuggling cigarettes, excise products (tobacco) and explosive materials (pyrotechnics) and money laundering.

The researches carried out highlighted that, in the period 2022 – 2024, the members of the two criminal groups procured excisable goods from outside Romania, fraudulently introduced them into the country (with the complicity or support of some officials from the public authorities), transported and stored them in the purpose of capitalization on the “black market”. During the administration of the probation, the amounts of 38,019,640 cigarettes (of which more than 24,000,000 during 12 red-handed actions), 64 tons of smoking tobacco, 8.3 tons of pyrotechnic materials were abolished and three clandestine factories of contraband cigarettes, two located on the territory of Romania and one in the Czech Republic. The damage caused to the consolidated state budget by the criminal activity of the two groups amounts to 12,740,000 euros. More than 50 arrest warrants issued in the name of the suspects are being executed, of which four are civil servants with special status, the hearings being held at the headquarters of DIICOT – Timișoara Territorial Service. The action benefits from the support of the policemen of the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police and the subordinate structures in the territory and the gendarmes of the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Gendarmerie. Specialist support was provided by the Technical and Forensic Bureau of DIICOT and the Special Operations Directorate of the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police.