Romania’s ruling Social Democrat Leader Liviu Dragnea is under investigation by prosecutors in Brazil for allegedly using intermediaries to buy real estate and launder money in the South American country, according to federal prosecutor Carlos Wagner Barbosa Guimaraes.
He told Brazilian journalists that Romanian and Brazilian authorities had started an investigation into whether Dragnea had used laranjas [a slang term for intermediaries] to buy property on a beach 30 kilometres from Fortaleza, capital of Ceará state, with graft money.
Dragnea made light of the probe with a pun on use of the word laranjas, which literally means “oranges” in Portuguese.
“I’m turning myself in, I got caught selling oranges [laranjas] on the beach,” Dragnea said on Friday. “I only own what I wrote in my statement of wealth,” he added.
Guimaraes said Brazilian prosecutors started the investigation after receiving a cooperation request from their Romanian counterparts in July 2017.
It was said that Romania requested fiscal and banking records as well as assets of companies owned by three alleged intermediaries.
An investigation published in 2017 by OCCRP in cooperation with Rise Project said Dragnea and two alleged intermediaries had gone to college together and performed in a rock band.
One of the men died in 2015 on a plane while travelling to Costa Rica. Police said he had strangled himself with his shoelaces.
In November 2017, Romanian anti-graft prosecutors announced that they were investigating Dragnea for allegedly forming a criminal group to embezzle over 20 million euros through TelDrum, a road infrastructure constructor, which he allegedly owned through bearer shares.
The investigation came after the European Union’s Anti-Fraud Office OLAF in 2017 notified Romania that fraud had been committed in several infrastructure contracts awarded to the company. Prosecutors have also frozen Dragnea’s accounts and assets.
