Rise Project investigation into Selly's announced seaside resort: “Allegations of corruption, public land arrangements and administrative juggling to circumvent laws” / Influencer and his business partner's reaction

Rise Project claims in a media investigation that these days, in Tuzla, there is a fight for land, in the area of ​​a former state orchard with an area of ​​110 hectares. According to the publication, the mayor of the commune is forcing the approval of the urban plan for a branch of the tourism project of the entrepreneur Lucian Gîtiță, the man behind the Beach Please festival, and his business partner, Andrei Șelaru (Selly).

“Accusations of corruption, arrangements with public lands and administrative juggling to circumvent the laws. It is happening in Tuzla, near Costinești, where the organizers of the Beach Please festival have designed holiday homes, commercial spaces and hotels”, wrote those from Rise in the opening of the “Beach Please Planet” investigation.

The publication says it went after the business of “Nibiru”, the tourism project announced by Selly on the coast, after a local councilor told investigative journalists that several irregularities were happening in Tuzla.

“I discovered that several plots of land were bought in Tuzla by Beach Please organizers, after the mayor of the locality suddenly changed their status, moving them from extra-village to intra-village, so that they could be bought. Neither those who sold the surfaces nor the local councilors understand the mayor's scam”, claims Rise Project.

“The schemes of the mayor and his henchmen are already on the table of the prosecutors”

Rise notes that the gear behind the business ran into legal barriers regarding the sale of agricultural land outside the village, “but the mayor juggled several documents and transferred the land from outside the village to inside the village overnight, and the owners of Beach Please purchased it the next day, without running into the law.”

“The documents were then used to approve the purchase of the orchard by the Ministry of Agriculture. Despite these efforts, the 'documents are null', say the experts who studied the documents submitted by the mayor to the cadastre. The legality of these documents should have been checked, according to the law, by the prefect. But the prefect of Constanța county has repeatedly blocked the access of RISE reporters to public documents in the institution's archive”, say the investigative journalists.

The former state orchard, which Rise writes was seized in the past by Gigi Becali's close associates, has not yet been traded, “but promises of sale and purchase are already signed.”

Rise accuses the mayor of Tuzla of “forcing the sale of a public land, strategically placed between the festival and the orchard to the people behind Beach Please”, but “didn't manage to transfer it, after a scandal broke out in the City Council”.

“The schemes of the mayor and his henchmen are already on the table of anti-corruption prosecutors who are investigating abuse of office and bribery, after a local councilor made a criminal complaint against them,” Rise writes.

What Lucian Gîtiță and Selly say

According to Rise, Lucian Gîtiță, the main associate from the Global Records record label, but also from other companies that have the Nibiru project in their portfolio, “suddenly distanced himself from the purchased lands, when RISE reporters asked him about these transactions, insisting that the perimeter of the orchard was never part of the resort project”.

“However, Andrei Șelaru (Selly), his partner, told us that the orchard was included in the Nibiru project until a few months ago, but that their plans have changed,” the publication states.

In its response to Rise, Global Records states that “the lands on which the NIBIRU project is being developed, with a total area of ​​21 hectares, belong to Nibiru Real Estate SRL and are located in the town of Costinești”.

“As for the subsequent phases of the project, currently under analysis and planned for development over an estimated period of up to 15 years, they cover a cumulative area of ​​over 200 hectares, located on the territory of UAT Costinești, Tuzla, Olimp and Eforie Sud. The respective lands are only in private ownership, have intra-village status and are in the process of negotiation, signing”, Global Records also claims.

“Meanwhile, our plans have changed”

Selly claims that on August 8, there were “plans to expand the NIBIRU project to include” the former state orchard, but plans “changed” in the meantime.

“In the meantime, our plans have changed, we have noticed other more attractive opportunities, and we are currently in the course of several discussions and negotiations for the future expansion of the project on other lands to rent or buy. We have several scenarios for the expansion of this project, but at the current stage, the only lands that are part of NIBIRU are those owned by NIBIRU Real Estate SRL (which, by the way, also owns the NIBIRU brand), a company that I represent it as an investor and CEO. These are the lands on which the project is actually developing at the moment,” added Andrei Șelaru.

He said that “any discussion about other lands – including the ones in Tuzla that you mention – has been done strictly at the level of plans, intentions or possible scenarios for further phases. All this is, of course, conditional on the success of the first phase.”

“The fact that a piece of land is analyzed, discussed or mentioned in a hypothetical context does not automatically make it part of the NIBIRU project from a legal or operational point of view. As I said, today we are looking at more than 200 hectares of land on the entire coast, not just in the Costinești area,” continued the influencer.

Selly said the first phase of the 21-hectare Nibiru project is the only one currently being worked on.

“For clarity: there is no communication, no public campaign, no event and no visual material to present to the public a real estate development on 160 hectares or land in Tuzla. There is an essential difference between what is actually under development and what is planned as a future possibility, and this difference has been constantly maintained in the communication. Also, we have never mentioned that the NIBIRU project will contain accommodation units, hotels, apart-hotels, residential developments. If needed, we can provide the entire archive of public materials, which unequivocally proves this”, he also declared.

Read the full Rise Project investigation HERE.