The police are looking for Darius Vâlcov, who has to serve a six-year sentence

The police are looking for Vâlcov because he was not found at home.

“On May 2, 2023, the police officers of the General Directorate of Police of the Municipality of Bucharest – Criminal Investigation Service received a warrant for the execution of the prison sentence, issued in the name of a 46-year-old man. The person in question was sentenced by the Bucharest Court to a prison sentence of 6 years, for committing the crimes of money laundering and influence peddling, a sentence that remained final by the decision of the High Court of Cassation and Justice. At this moment, specific activities are being carried out, in order to detect the person in question”, announced the Capital Police.

The former mayor of the municipality of Slatina, Darius Vâlcov, was definitively sentenced to six years in prison, according to Tuesday’s decision of the High Court of Cassation and Justice. In the first instance, he received an eight-year prison sentence.

“Consolidates the penalties established by this decision and applies to the defendant Vâlcov Darius Bogdan the heaviest penalty, 5 years in prison, to which he adds an increase of 1 year in prison, representing a third of the total of the other 3 years in prison, which he will serve, in finally, a 6-year prison sentence. It maintains the protective measures taken against the defendant Vâlcov Darius – Bogdan by the ordinances of March 27, 2014, March 31, 2015, April 30, 2015 and May 11, 2015 issued in file no. 378/P/2014 of the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice – National Anticorruption Directorate, Anti-corruption Section, up to the sum of 6,200,000 lei”, according to the ÎCCJ.

The decision is final.

The High Court of Cassation and Justice reinstated the case in which Darius Vâlcov was accused in 2022.

“Reopens the case that forms the subject of file no. 790/1/2019, having as its object the appeals declared by the Public Ministry, the prosecutor’s office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice – the National Anticorruption Directorate and the defendants Tomescu Constantin Cristian, Vâlcov Darius Bogdan, Prina Minel Florin and Timofte Petre Bogdan against the criminal sentence no. 74 of February 8, 2018, pronounced by the Criminal Section of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, in the file no. 2018/1/2018, regarding the defendant Susală Lucian Petrut . Fixes a trial date for September 26, 2022, Hall of the United Sections, with the summoning of the defendants and the acquaintance of their defenders”, according to the ÎCCJ minute.

According to the investigators, in 2009, the administrator of a commercial company contacted Darius Vâlcov, who at that time was the mayor of Slatina municipality, Olt county. The businessman proposed to Vâlcov that, in exchange for offering support in influencing the decision-makers within the contracting authority, in order to win some works tenders for objectives located in the municipality of Slatina, in the cities of Scorniceşti, Piatra Olt and Drăgăneşti, he would give him 20 % of the value of the sums collected (without VAT), according to the contracts for the execution of the respective works.

Thus, in November 2008, the project “Extension and rehabilitation of water and wastewater systems in Olt county” was approved, the final beneficiary of which is SC Compania De Apa Olt SA, regional operator to which the Intercommunity Development Association (ADI) “Olt ” (ADI) delegated the water supply and sewerage services in the implementation area of ​​the project “Extension and rehabilitation of the water supply and sewerage system in Olt county”.

Within this project, the contracts “Rehabilitation and expansion of the water and sewerage network in the cities of Scornicesti and Potcoava”, “Rehabilitation and expansion of the water and sewerage network in the municipality of Slatina” and “Rehabilitation and expansion of the water and sewerage network in the cities of Drăgăneşti” were concluded -Olt and Piatra-Olt”, say the prosecutors.

According to the cited source, during the bidding procedures, the members of the commission improperly removed part of the eligibility conditions from the specifications in order to favor the businessman’s company, at the behest of the former Minister of Finance.

In the end, the businessman’s company won the tenders organized within the project “Extending and rehabilitating the water supply and wastewater systems in Olt county”, with the object of signing contracts with the Olt Water Company for several works.

“The administrator of the company and the suspect Vâlcov Bogdan Darius mutually agreed that the sums of money should be handed over to the mayor, in cash, in lei and only at the company’s headquarters. Thus, based on this agreement, starting from December 2010, the suspect Vâlcov Bogdan Darius appeared periodically at the headquarters of the businessman’s company, where he received sums of money in lei from him, the remittance being made whenever the contractor Compania De Apa Olt made payments to the company’s account”, according to the anti-corruption prosecutors.

The prosecutors came to the conclusion that, starting in mid-2012, due to some existing financial problems within his company, the administrator could no longer make payments to Vâlcov.

In this context, Darius Vâlcov put the businessman in touch with Minel-Florin Prina, who at the time was deputy mayor of the municipality. Prina knew about the agreement between the two and decided, in order to disguise the illegal origin of the money, that the unpaid money differences be paid to a company, by concluding three fictitious contracts for the supply of goods/services, without this company providing any service.

“From here, the transfer of the sums of money was made with the support and through the defendants Suşală Lucian Petruţ, Timofte Petre-Bogdan, Tomescu Constantin Cristian and another businessman, trusted persons from the entourage of the mayor and vice-mayor of the municipality of Slatina, administrators of some commercial companies, which created a circuit of fictitious financial-accounting documents, in order to conceal the real origin and destination of the sums of money”, according to the investigators.

The contracts concluded between these companies, as well as the invoices issued based on these contracts, were fictitious.

The investigators also established that, following the agreement with the businessman, the former Minister of Finance received, in the period 2010-2013, approximately two million euros, part of this amount being received directly, in cash, and the amount of He received 2,480,000 lei through some companies.