The police conducted a total of 18 searches in Bucharest and Ilfov, Valcea and Suceava counties, on Tuesday morning, July 7, to dismantle a criminal network specializing in tax evasion.

Investigations show that a local sanitation company is involved in the criminal ring. According to police sources cited by local Mediafax, the name of the company is Urban SA, and company associates Teodor Florescu and Ion Balaceanu are among the 32 people to be brought in for questioning.

Urban SA is in charge with sanitation in Bucharest's District 6, Otopeni, Brasov, Ramnicu Valcea, Calarasi and other smaller towns in Romania.

The company allegedly avoided paying taxes by closing fictitious business contracts with 20 other companies in Romania. “This way, between 2008 and 2012, the company had conducted commercial activities of EUR 90 million, damaging the state budget by some EUR 23 million,” reads a statement of the Romanian Police.

Urban SA is the second large sanitation company in Romania investigated for tax evasion. Earlier this year, Romprest Group, the company that does the sanitation in Bucharest's District 1 and District 5, was also targeted by an investigation. The company's owner, Romanian Florian Walter, fled the country before the prosecutors got to him.

Fugitive Romanian businessman Florian Walter held in Colombia

Another Romanian businessman investigated for tax evasion

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