Sorin Ovidiu Vintu, one of the most powerful investors in Romania in the late 1990s and early 2000s, was sentenced to eight years in prison in a case related to the fall of the National Investment Fund (FNI), one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in Romania.

Vintu was found guilty of money laundering as he withdrew large cash amounts from the fund just before it collapsed. The Court of Appeal also ruled that Vintu should pay USD 13 million worth of damages in this case. the court’s decision is final.

The Bucharest Court sentenced Vintu to six years and four months in jail, in February 2015. At that time, the court also decided to seize USD 7.2 million of Vintu’s money, which he got through money laundering. However, the businessman challenged that decision, and the Court of Appeal thus ruled on Tuesday a higher sentence.

Vintu was sent to court in this case in 2012. FNI (Fondul National de Investitii) was a pyramidal (Ponzi) scheme which damaged more than 300,000 Romanians in the late 1990s. The fund was set up in 1996 by SOV Invest, an investment management company that Vantu controlled. Vintu officially sold the fund to Ioana Maria Vlas in 1997. The investment fund went bankrupt in 2000, when thousands of people lost their savings deposited in the fund. Prosecutors said that Vintu bought several properties with the money resulted from deceiving FNI investors.

Ioana Maria Vlas fled to Israel after the authorities started investigating the fund's collapse. She returned to the country in 2003 and was sentenced to ten years in prison for the fraud. She was released on parole in 2010 and admitted her guilt, but she claimed that Sorin Ovidiu Vintu was the master mind who orchestrated the scheme.

Sorin Ovidiu Vintu is currently serving time in another case. He was sentenced to six years in prison in July last year, for embezzlement and money laundering related to the bankruptcy of the former Petromservice.

However, he previously served time in other cases. In June 2012, he was sentenced to one year in prison for blackmailing his business partner, Sebastian Ghita, and in 2014 he was convicted to two years of jail time for helping fugitive Nicolae Popa, another one of his collaborators in the FNI business. He  was released on parole in November 2014.

In December 2016, Vintu got yet another prison sentence of ten years and two months in the case of misappropriating the assets of the SNP Petrom Employees Association. The decision was not final however, and was challenged at the Bucharest Court of Appeal.

For some 10 years, Sorin Ovidiu Vintu was one of the most powerful people in Romania. He controlled a wide range of businesses and also influenced the local politics through his media group, which included several TV channels (including Realitatea TV), radio stations, newspapers, and a news agency.

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