Investigation: After a decade, Holzindustrie Schweighofer is only investigated in a single file of tax evasion and organized crime / EC discovered Rise Project about one of the DIICOT prosecutors initially involved in the investigation.

Rise Project journalists published a new investigation on Holzindustrie Schweighofer, the Austrian corporation in Romania on Thursday, and the DIICOT file on tax evasion, money laundering and setting up an organized criminal group. Rise Project shows that, after a decade, in which DIICOT prosecutors also scorned in the Schweighofer factories, organized crime files and tax evasion have been shot until they were reduced to one, as most of the facts were prescribed.

• Prosecutors estimate that, during 2010-2017, the company received wood worth 154 million lei without highlighting it in the accounting registers.
• At the same time, from the documents obtained by RISE it appears that the company would have harmed the state with another 36 million lei, VAT that was not paid after the wood was processed and sold.
• It is the only file in which Schweighofer is still investigated, the rest of the investigations of the last 10 years have stopped because much of the facts have prescribed.
• RISE also discovered that one of the DIICOT prosecutors, who initially guided the team investigating Schweighofer, became a member of an NGO that received 1.2 million lei, sponsorships, even from the Austrians.

This is the scheme revealed two years ago in the article “The missing wood factory”. Schweighofer imposed by the contract overungs for the delivered logs, benefiting such additional amounts of wood worth millions of euros. In contrast, the losses were accounted for by both private suppliers, who did not receive any money for extra -delivered and state – who could not charge transactions at their real value.

Prosecutors' calculations are largely confirmed by those made by RISE with experts in the field. The accusations now are of tax evasion and money laundering. They received large amounts of money, undeteaxed by the state.

The estimates of the prosecutors show that, between 2010-2017, local branches of the Austrian group received almost 580 thousand cubic meters of wood without highlighting it in the accounting documents. Wood worth 154 million lei.

Prosecutors claim that the company has harmed the state with another 36 million lei, VAT that was not paid after the wood was processed and sold. So the damage is approaching 194 million lei, about 39 million euros.

The rest of the files of the last ten years have stopped because most of the facts have been prescribed.

RISE also discovered that one of the prosecutors who initially guided the team investigating the Schweighofer group became a member of a non-governmental organization that received 1.2 million lei, sponsorships, even from Schweighofer.

Read the full material on Rise Project.