“Identity theft on 3 billion euro auctions?!”. The scandal continues on the Cluj Metropolitan Belt project: What the company from Bosnia, which denies that it participated in the tender won with the Romanians, sent

The scandal regarding the contract for the Cluj Metropolitan Belt, won last year by Dimex 2000 SRL, in partnership with a company from Bosnia and one from Bulgaria, continues after a few days ago the Bosnian company denied that it had participated in the auction. After the mayor's office led by Emil Boc gave details about the representative who signed the association documents between the companies, the Integral Inženjering company said that the person mentioned had never worked for them.

“Surreal episode, identity theft on tenders of 3 billion euros?!”, writes the Pro Infrastructure Association, which presents a statement from the Bosnian company Integral Inženjering, which appears in the winning association alongside the Hydrostroy company from Bulgaria and the association leader Dimex 2000 SRL from Romania.

“According to the attached communiqué sent at our request a short time ago, the Bosnians from Integral Inženjering write in black and white that a certain Dragan Janošević, the person who was invoked yesterday by the town hall as the one authorized by the Bosnian company to represent it in the association with the Dimex leader in the Cluj-Napoca Metropolitan Area, has never worked for them and was never authorized by them to participate in the auction!”, informs the civic organization.

Integral Inženjering also conveys that they have not authorized anyone to participate in any public procurement procedure on any project in Romania.

Previously, a few days ago, the company publicly announced that it did not participate in the auction in which it appeared as the winner, after information appeared in the public space that the Cluj Napoca administration suspended the contract due to misunderstandings between the builders.

How Cluj-Napoca City Hall defends itself: “The companies presented an association agreement legalized at a notary public in Bulgaria”

Cluj-Napoca City Hall, led by the liberal Emil Boc, then published a series of information justifying how they awarded the contract to the winning companies and claims that all the Romanian state institutions involved validated the documents submitted by the builders.

“This contract was signed on the basis of the powers of attorney submitted during the award procedure, as well as the association agreement, presented both in original and legalized by a notary public in Bulgaria”, according to mayor Emil Boc who also published a video on Facebook explaining the situation.

The mayor's office led by Boc says that, although the contract was signed in May 2025, it was only in September that it received an email from the company in Bosnia in which it was informed that “it has not signed any association agreement, subcontracting agreement or other commitment authorizing the participation in this tender or the execution of the contract”.

From September until the end of the year, Cluj-Napoca City Hall, Dimex and the other companies in the association held discussions and exchanged correspondence, without reaching an agreement, according to the details published by the local administration.

Emil Boc: “Solve the dispute in 10 days, otherwise we will terminate the contract”

“I have requested Dimex and Integral to resolve the contractual dispute within a maximum of 10 working days. If they do not do this, I will request the unilateral termination of the contract,” says mayor Emil Boc in the video clip posted on his Facebook account.

“I requested several physical or online meetings with the two associates. Meetings that were refused. I only had a physical meeting with the representatives of Dimex. I have been requesting documents from the associates for several months to clarify their contractual situation. I have submitted to the criminal investigation authorities all the documents incident to the case. I have ordered the suspension of the contract until the situation is resolved, but everything has a limit! We cannot wait for two irresponsible companies to defy them on Cluj”, said Boc, who says that the created situation calls into question the validity of the tender.

Pro Infrastrctura says that the association of companies appears in Romanian tenders of 3 billion euros: “It is imperative that DNA and EPPO urgently self-report”

“Obviously, the contract signed with Dimex at the Metropolitan Belt becomes null and void if the Bosnian partner was introduced into the association only to artificially cover the requirement for experience in building tunnels, experience that the Romanian builder does not have. The logical next step is to terminate and resume the tender on a solid basis,” the Pro Infrastructure Association also claims.

“If the statements of Integral Inženjering officials are confirmed in court, it is an unprecedented case: a possible theft of corporate identity and fictitious/fake participation in tenders of over, attention, 3 billion euros: Cluj-Napoca Metropolitan Ring Road, Bacău-Piatra Neamț Expressway, Târgoviște Link Road, Mediaș Ring Road and DN73C Curtea de Argeș-Tigveni Rehabilitation. Possible others, but that is all we have found so far now,” says the organization that monitors major infrastructure projects in the country.

“It is imperative that DNA and EPPO report themselves as a matter of urgency. If it is confirmed, all those involved must answer, without exception: those who would have directly falsified the participation documents, those who circumvented or tolerated this scheme, the companies who would have insisted on using a company that had explicitly refused the association, the notary who would have authenticated documents without verifying the real management of the company in Bosnia, as well as Cluj-Napoca City Hall, the contracting authority at the Metropolitan Belt, which did not do any minimum diligence to check the validity of the documentation”, accuses the organization.

The announcement of the company in Bosnia a few days ago

“There is not and never has been a partnership between Integral inženjering ad Laktaši and HydrostroyAD from Bulgaria and the company Dimex 2000 from Romania. The alleged representatives of Dimex 2000 contacted us on September 27, 2024 with an offer of cooperation in the Cluj bypass project, but we rejected this cooperation in writing, first on October 2, 2024, then again on October 15, 2024. After that, the authorized persons of Integral inženjering had no further contact with the respective companies. I never authorized any other person to communicate, negotiate, deliver or sign documents of any kind with them,” the representatives of the Bosnian company Integral Inženjering said, according to Public Record.

Emil Boc says that the auction procedure was approved by the state institutions

“Regarding the award of the contract, we emphasize that all the legal obligations of a contracting authority have been respected. The evaluation procedure was carried out under the supervision of ANAP, it was carried out by an evaluation committee with co-opted experts, in compliance with the applicable legal framework, and the report of the procedure was endorsed with unconditional approval by ANAP. Also, prior to signing the contract, the European Commission confirmed the fulfillment of the necessary legal steps. (…) When we were notified by Integral, last fall, we immediately proceeded to institutional checks and notified the DNA”, said Emil Boc.

“Regarding possible suspicions related to the authenticity of the documents submitted, they do not belong to the competence of the contracting authority. According to the law, the responsibility for the content and correctness of the documents submitted during the procedure rests exclusively with the bidder,” Mayor Emil Boc also declared.

Dimex and the corruption files

The contract of approximately 4.7 billion lei for the Cluj-Napoca Metropolitan Belt was signed in May 2025 with the association of companies Dimex 2000 Company SRL from Bistrița, Hydrostroy AD from Bulgaria and Inzenjering AD Laktasi from Bosnia.

Dimex 2000 Company SRL is owned by entrepreneurs Ioan and Neluta Lucretia Scurtu from Bistrița-Năsăud.

In 2022, Ioan Scurtu and the company in which he is associated were sent to court in a corruption case.

DNA Cluj prosecutors discovered that the company Dimex had drawn up false documents regarding the place where the broken stone used for the modernization of some forest roads came from. More precisely, it had been extracted illegally from the former Colbu mine in Prundu Bârgăului commune, reports the Public Record website.

At the same time, Ioan Scurtu was sentenced in 2015, for buying influence, to two years in prison with a suspended sentence under supervision for a four-year probationary period. He built a bridge to the villa of a prosecutor in Bistrita Năsăud, and in exchange for free work, the magistrate was going to help him obtain a favorable solution in a civil case regarding some land in the area.