Some 280 Romanian hospitals have become civil parties against Romanian company Hexi Pharma, which is investigated for having sold diluted disinfectants to hospitals for years. The damage in this case amounts to RON 70 million (EUR 15.5 million) for now, said General Prosecutor Augustin Lazar.

Flori Dinu, the general manager of Hexi Pharma, is currently being investigated for 99 offenses of deception under continued form, 29 crimes of deception, and thwarting disease control, reports local Mediafax. Flori Dinu was arrested in late May.

Prosecutors also investigate Mihai Leva, the company’s head of production, for complicity thwarting disease control.

Romania's National Anticorruption Department DNA is also conducting a corruption investigation in this case.

Dan Condrea, the owner of Hexi Pharma, who was the key suspect in this investigation, died in a car crash near Bucharest on May 22. The accident was so violent that the driver couldn’t be identified due to very severe injuries. However, a week later, DNA tests confirmed that the driver was indeed Dan Condrea.

A team of journalists from local sports newspaper Gazeta Sporturilor, coordinated by Catalin Tolontan, brought this scandal to the public attention. At the beginning of May this year, journalists discovered that Hexi Pharma had been selling disinfectants with a concentration up to ten times lower than the one mentioned on the products’ labels, which made them ineffective in killing dangerous hospital germs.

The same journalists wrote last year that many of the victims who survived the deadly fire in Colectiv club died in local and foreign hospitals due to hospital infections.

Insights into a corrupt system: New allegations in diluted disinfectant scandal in Romania

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com