Romanian Intelligence (SRI) was acquainted with the FNI affair, which caused 300,000 deponents to lose their savings over night. SRI monitored the affair and transmitted as early as last year information on the problems the Fund was facing. The information was submitted to those mandated to receive it, namely representatives of high state institutions, but their inertia provided for the occurrence of what is likely to be the largest financial fraud, amounting to 200-300 million dollars.
“We always inform in due time the people we should keep informed”, Ovidiu Iordache, chief of the Press Office within SRI, told Ziarul Financiar.
In line with the law on its functioning, the Romanian Intelligence has the obligation to investigate cases related to national security and to submit reports to state institutions in charge.
The deputy chairman of the parliamentary SRI control commission, Ovidiu Petrescu, a representative of PDSR, last week specified that he and his colleagues had received information of this kind two-three months ago, when they paid a visit to the economic Department within SRI.
He showed that information on FNI was delivered by SRI to the other state institutions as well.
Daniela Buruiana, a member of the Commission from the part of PRM (Great Romania Party), maintains that the commission received the information concerning FNI several months ago, but SRI had informed the mandated institutions as early as one year ago.
The Press Office within SRI abstained from commenting on such statements. “We cannot comment such a statement by a member of the organism that is controlling us,” Ovidiu Iordache said.
Ziarul Financiar reporters asked the Press Office several questions related to the FNI (National Investment Fund) issue and to the statements made by a member of the supervising commission, but they did not receive any answers.
Other members of the SRI (Romanian Intelligence Service) commission were contacted as well, but they refused to state any position.
As long as two members of the commission said that FNI problems were well known and that reports had been drawn a year before, SRI must have been monitoring this affair for quite a long time.
SRI reports for the past two years, presented this spring to Parliament, underlined the vulnerability of the Romanian financial and banking system. The reports do not contain any specific data, given that most cases are still being analysed by SRI.
The size of the FNI affair was revealed only after reuniting all damage requests submitted by investors. As compared to reports made public by SOV Invest, the company managing FNI, which estimated net assets of the Fund at 3,400 billion lei, the investors’ claims total no less than 7,000 billion lei. Officials found at the Fund’s headquarters only 200 billion lei, in cash and stock, indicating that massive amounts of money have vanished.
Therefore, the business was double as compared to figures released by SOV Invest, which also raises another question: not only where has the money gone, but also where did it come from?