Romania, the country with the most cases of fraud

Romania is the country with the largest number of cases transferred to national authorities by the European Anti-Fraud Department.

From 2006 to 2011 the department notified the authorities in Bucharest about 255 cases, almost half of them still pending a court decision.

The OLAF officials insist that the statistics vary from one report to another, and according to the information in the activity reports for 2011, other countries have significant percentages of cases still pending a court decision.

Romania is still among countries with small a percentage of cases ended with a court sentence.

According to Giovanni Kessler, the OLAF general manager , the cooperation with the antifraud authorities in Romania is very efficient, but in terms of legal proceedings the situation differs with every case.

Over 73 per cent of the cases that have received a verdict from the authorities have been rejected without any trial and only 23 per cent , 30 cases to be exact, have ended with a court sentence.

As regards the fact that Romania has the highest number of cases reported in the time period between 2006 and 2011, he was hoping that the situation would change.

"For the past years Romania has been in the attention of the Anti-Fraud department if we take into consideration not only the cases of this type. There have been other cases involving the SAPARD funds destined to be used in agriculture. They ended up with us issuing many files, about older cases, many of which have been closed, but I hope that future reports will be more balanced ” Giovanni Kessler said.

Tuesday’s OLAF report on the activity in 2011 indicates that the department contributed to the retrieval of almost 700 million Euros, and the sentences given after several investigations were conducted add up to over 500 years in prison.

Last year the department reopened almost 180 new cases, and the examples offered at the presentation of the report vary from the retrieval of almost 400 million euros in a case involving the use of Italian structural funds destined for the traffic infrastructure by an EU official who was caught receiving bribe.

The department is also conducting activities involving the security of the EU’s Eastern borders, focusing on countering the traffic with cigarettes, a EU initiative involving Romania.

As of 2011, OLAF has a representative in Kiev, appointed to cooperate with the Ukraine authorities.

According to the report for 2011, one of the problems at the Eastern border is the corruption and the deficient resources and infrastructure.

Translated by Vlad Nichita

MTTLC, Bucharest University