Romanian prosecutors have asked a Bucharest court to place former presidential candidate Călin Georgescu and businessman Ionel Rusen in pretrial detention for 30 days over an alleged organized criminal group and a 1.1 million euro ($1.26 million) fraud.
According to a prosecution filing reviewed by OCCRP, investigators allege Georgescu, Rusen and Italian businessman Massimiliano Arena persuaded a Romanian businessman to transfer money as a guarantee for a foreign credit line that never materialized. Prosecutors say Georgescu initiated the arrangement and introduced Rusen as someone capable of securing the financing.
The victim first transferred 1 million euros and later another 100,000 euros after being told the loan could be increased from six million euros to 15 million, the filing says. Prosecutors detained Georgescu and Rusen for 24 hours following searches that uncovered electronic devices, signal jammers and documents suspected of being false. The filing also cites secretly recorded conversations in which Georgescu discussed buying property in Italy and seeking political asylum, which prosecutors cited in arguing that he posed a flight risk.
Georgescu’s campaign team previously told Digi24 it had no information about the case and Rusen told Digi24 that he was not Georgescu’s business partner, had not participated in his presidential campaign and declined to comment on the fraud allegations. Arena told IrpiMedia that he had learned about the Romanian complaint from journalists and would comment only after receiving official notification from the competent judicial authorities.
