- Case successfully solved through regional cooperation
- The members of an organised crime group operating in Romania were arrested for unlawful deprivation of freedom, robbery and blackmail
- At least 7 victims were identified, namely Turkish business people
BUCHAREST, December 18th - During a press conference organized at the SECI Center headquarters, Romanian authorities announced the dismantling of an organized crime group made up of Romanian citizens, some of Turkish origin, as well as Turkish citizens, specialised in committing highly violent crimes consisting of kidnapping, detention, blackmail and robbery, mainly against Turkish business people.
The operation was launched in February this year after the Turkish National Police received the statement of a Turkish business man who had been detained and blackmailed in Romania. The information was conveyed to the Romanian authorities through the SECI Centre channel.
The group’s illegal activity
The victims, Turkish citizens, were drawn to Romania by being offered extremely advantageous tourism business opportunities, the plans for deceiving them being prepared in great detail by the criminals. Once in Bucharest, the businessmen were taken over by the Romanian companies’ “managers” and transferred to Constanta, for business negotiations.
The criminals invited their future partners to restaurants or night clubs and facilitated connections with prostitutes. Then they went to rented places together and left their victims alone with the prostitutes.
At this point, other network members stepped in. They would break into the place, claiming to be policemen and accused the Turkish business men of having broken the Romanian law, by intending to have sexual relations with minors. There were cases in which the fake policemen also “accidentally” found pills or other substances which they claimed to be drugs and to belong to the Turkish citizens.
“Each time, criminals told their victims that they could be convicted to many years of jail, but the situation could be solved for an amount of money between EUR 30 – 40,000. During such actions, the group members would make use of extreme acts of violence, beating, torture, mental terror, and death threats”, Toma Rus, director of Organised Crime Directorate explained.
In order to be allowed to go back home, the victims, supervised by the criminals, would call their relatives or friends and ask for the money.
Once in Turkey, some victims told the authorities what had happened in Romania, but due to their emotional states and the traumas suffered, the initially supplied data failed to provide enough traces.
“The case resembles so much an action movie. The criminals acted after a very detailed and well prepared scenario. All the perpetrators had roles and they were acting all the time. It is another example that the criminals are more and more inventive and they are challenging the police forces in the region”, Mitja Močnik, SECI Center director stated. He also appreciated the professionalism of the Romanian and Turkish investigative teams.
The investigation
Under the coordination of the prosecutors from the Directorate for Investigation of Organised Crime and Terrorism, DIICOT Romania, a regional investigation team was created, being made up of policemen from the Romanian Directorate for Combating Organised Crime and officers from the Department of Anti-smuggling and Organised Crime, Turkish National Police, with the support of the SECI Centre. The data and information exchanged between the two countries’ structures for combating organised crime intensified against the background of a significant increase in the number of crimes committed by the group.
In Romania, special measures were required for the authorities to identify the group members and establish each member’s role, considering the small amount of information initially supplied by the victims.
In Turkey, authorities launched an extended activity aimed at identifying the highest possible number of victims.
During the investigation, 7 victims were identified and heard, - Turkish citizens, owners of certain hotels in Turkey, from whom the group members had claimed and obtained almost EUR 100,000 in exchange for their freedom.
Some victims were also identified, but refused to cooperate with the Romanian or Turkish legal authorities. The authorities also learned of four other attempts to commit the crime.
The SECI Centre organised a meeting between the Romanian and Turkish prosecutors and investigators teams in Turkey, which allowed rapid access to interviews managed by the Turkish counterparts, an important condition for eliminating the criminal network.
Codrut Olaru, the Romanian Chief Prosecutor of DIICOT offered details related to the modus operandi of the organized group: “The investigation was quite difficult due to the speed of the criminals’ action, their mobility, and the fact that they detained their victims for a maximum of 48 hours on the Romanian territory. After this timeframe, they would transfer the Turkish citizens abroad where they couldn’t possibly contact the authorities. Also, the suspects changed their residences on a regular basis”.
Dismantling the group
On 24 November 2008, it was established that there was a Turkish citizen on the Romanian territory who had been detained by this group, which wanted EUR 30,000 in exchange for his freedom. Specific activities were immediately initiated to identifying the person detained and the place of his detention since there were some indications that he was subject to serious physical and mental violence in order to obtain the money claimed for his release. The entire activity was coordinated by the prosecutors from D.I.I.C.O.T. and officers of D.G.C.C.O. The priority was to free the detained person and eliminate the life threatening situation.
In the early morning of 25 November 2008, the suspects were captured, with the support of the Romanian Gendarmerie intervention teams.
The network leader, A.H., a 36 year-old Turkish citizen, and his “lieutenants”, Z.S., aged 58, B.S., aged 50, D.V.F., aged 30, and A.I., aged 27, were taken to the DIICOT Central Structure in Bucharest, where prosecutors ordered their arrest for 24 hours for having committed the crimes of initiating and creating an organised crime group, illegal deprivation of freedom, robbery and blackmail.
The Bucharest Court of Law issued the same sentence, ordering the preventive arrest of the five defendants for 29 days.
Also, the Court ordered the initiation of the criminal prosecution against another individual, aged 56, who supported the group’s activity. Playing the role of secretary within the fictitious companies, she would hold conversations with the potential victims for the purpose of drawing them to Romania to conclude tourism contracts.
The group members are known as having carried out similar illegal activities. They have been under investigation for similar deeds in various criminal files opened in Constanţa County, Romania, in recent years.
The investigation is continuing to identify all the group members and establish the involvement level of each member, as well as to identify other victims.
