Seven persons were arrested following about 50 searches carried out at the metal waste company “Metalferos” and associated companies in the morning of December 4. These are suspected of appropriation of funds from “Metalferos”, IPN reports, quoting the Anticorruption Prosecutor’s Office.
The suspects implemented a scheme to buy and sell ferrous and nonferrous metal through fictitious intermediation activities so as to artificially increase the purchase price and to artificially decrease the price of selling metal to intermediaries. They appropriated the difference. The damage was assessed at over 215 million lei.
The persons are also suspected of organizing the signing of fictitious intermediation contracts between “Metalferos” and associated companies in the absence of economic justification. The task of the latter was to buy ferrous and nonferrous metals from “Metalferos” at low prices and to sell these in Turkey, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands at higher prices.
The difference in prices that in the absence of such contracts was to be collected by “Metalferos” was transferred mainly to Rowallan Overseas S.A, Steel Marketing LTD and Innotube LLP. The damage caused by exports was valued at about 133 million lei at the current stage.
The suspects face a fine of up to 47,500 lei in the case of private individuals and of up to 800,000 lei in the case of legal entities, up to 240 hours of community service or 5 to 15 years in jail.
