The Timisoara and Bucharest offices of Gazprom's local subsidiary, NIS Petrol (Romania), and the residences of some of its employees were searched by the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) on October 3 in relation to an alleged transfer of classified and non-public information to the parent group abroad, DIICOT confirmed after local media reported at least nine such operations.

Vocea Timisului, quoting sources familiar with the searches, reported that the information was also sent to a foreign intelligence service.

Domestic and foreign intelligence services SRI and SIE have reportedly contributed to the investigation, according to Digi24.ro.

Employees of the Gazprom subsidiary, which carries out oil and gas exploration works under four concession agreements with the national mineral agency NAMR since 2008 (since 2014 in partnership with Canada's East West Petroleum Corp - EWP), breached the provisions of the Oil Law by reporting the findings to their parent group but failing to report the results to the mineral agency.

In 2014, NIS Petrol started 3D geophysical prospecting for oil and natural gas in several areas of Timis County, in the area of ​​Cenad, Dudestii Vechi, Valcani, Beba Veche, Tomnatic, Teremia Mare, Comlosul Mare, Gottlob and Sannicolau Mare.

Following the DIICOT searches on October 3, documents and data storage media were seized, and eight people were taken to the Timisoara office of DIICOT for questioning. DIICOT prosecutors filed charges for crimes of disclosing official or non-public secret information and unauthorized transfer of computer data against 4 of them (foreign and Romanian citizens).

Since NIS Petrol (Romania) is a subsidiary of NIS Petrol (Serbia), the developments prompted reactions from the authorities of the neighbouring country - already under fire for its position closer to Russia. Serbia's President Aleksandar Vučić said that what happened was bad for Serbia but claimed that the event had nothing to do with the war for energy - but with a political-espionage war, Euronews.rs reported.

"This has nothing to do with the energy war, but this a political-espionage war, in order to additionally discipline some who are considered to be disobedient," Vucic said.

"At the same time, I do not at all rule out the possibility of the real guilt of the NIS, but I do not know what the case is, nor have I dealt with it. It is important to point out that there are no Serbian citizens, it has nothing to do with us. It's mostly Russians, but we'll ask for more information from the Romanian police. They're accusing one of the subsidiary companies of NIS of leaking data or something. Anyway, that's the only thing we needed now," he added.

iulian@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Jerome Cid | Dreamstime.com)