Romanian Police conducted a total of 19 house searches in several counties across the country in an operation against a criminal group specialized trafficking luxury cars.

Lead by prosecutors from the Romanian Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT), officers conducted 19 house searches in Arges, Satu Mare, Sibiu, Valcea and Bistrita Nasaud counties in Romania. The action aimed to dismantle a criminal group of 34 people structured on two levels, specialized in fraud, money laundering, forgery and misrepresentation.

According to a DIICOT statement, starting in 2011, Romanians, Italians and Bulgarians formed a criminal group with the purpose of bringing luxury cars to Romania, such as Audi Q5, Audi Q7, BMW X5, BMW X6, Range Rover Sport, Porsche Cayenne, Ford Mondeo, Mercedes, Land Rover Evoque, BMW 320.

Some of the group’s members had the role to bring to Romania, based on forged documents, cars from Italy, that were later sold by the group’s leader.

There are suspicions that group members have been bringing to Romania cars that were leased in Italy and that were later sold by the leader of the group, with the help of several accomplices.

“After selling them in Romania to buyers of good faith, the holders of the lease agreements were staging the cars’ theft,” reads the DIICOT statement.

A total of 31 luxury cars were identified by the police, which were sold for a total price of EUR 1  million. However, their market value was twice this amount, according to DIICOT.

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

(photo source: sxc.hu)