CLANUL MARELUI ALB

Video Statistics and Information

Video

Captions Word Cloud

Reddit Comments

Captions

Hello! Gabriel Petrescu? Hello! Petrescu! - I'm Father Aurel Mihai. - Hello! Gabi Petrescu. - Gabi? - Petrescu. Petrescu... Oh, Gabriel! May God give you health! I was just thinking of you. A RECORDER JOURNALIST INFILTRATED THE CHURCH'S FINANCIAL NETWORK - Should I kiss their hands? - No, just say hello. - Hello! - Welcome! - It's nice to be here! - Come in! - You’re beside the Great White... - The Great White? Is that what you call him? A NETWORK THAT SECRETLY RIGS TENDER PROCESSES WORTH MILLIONS OF EUROS Leave your phones in there. How can we be sure we'll win a tender process or two? - The proposal's used for a tender process. - Okay. - And it's won by whoever did the proposal... - Yes. The specification goes to the firms named by you or me, I'll name a couple too. A SYSTEM WHERE ONLY THE CHURCH’S ANOINTED FIRMS PROSPER - Hi! - Morning! - Are these churches? - Yes, each one's a contract. - Holy moly! They're all contracts? - Yeah, mate... A SYSTEM HIDDEN BY THE CHURCH AND ENDORSED BY ITS LEADER If our Patriarch's a very good manager, people'll say he only cares about money. What's he supposed to do? In terms of funds, the Romanian Orthodox Church is very poor. We’ll draw up a document informing His Beatitude. And if we hold this meeting and get his approval, we'll be fine... I asked the Great White, that’s how it is... It’s true he was in the Securitate. He knows more than anyone. THE CLAN OF THE "GREAT WHITE" A Recorder investigation Recorder recently published a probe into the deals behind the People’s Salvation Cathedral, Romania’s grandest building project in 30 years. The Church oversaw the project but relied heavily on public money. Save your people, Lord! The state gave the Church 11 hectares in central Bucharest with a market value of about EUR 180 million. Then, over the last decade, the government and local councils gave it an extra EUR 120 million for the project. It spent the money non-transparently under rules of its own making. Although it used public money, the Church cloaked the project in secrecy and refused to say which firms had won contracts or what they were earning or charging for materials. Recorder has learned that the winners of the contracts include politicians with close ties to the Church. Adriean Videanu, a former deputy PM, economy minister and mayor of Bucharest, made over RON 100 million through his firm, which supplied marble. But despite its vast size, the cathedral is just a small part of the empire built by the Church under Patriarch Daniel’s reign. On taking office in 2007, the Patriarch bemoaned the Church's financial situation. In terms of funds, the Romanian Orthodox Church is very poor. In terms of the immediate return we get on money, it's very poor compared with what it should get. Since then, the Church has seen a major overhaul that has boosted its assets considerably. In the last 12 years, the value of its properties has risen by more than 80 times from RON 10 to 820 million. Its annual revenue has quadrupled to RON 112 million. The latest Ministry of Finance figures show that Orthodox dioceses, archdioceses and metropolises bring in RON 590 million a year altogether. Then there are the revenues of the thousands of churches and monasteries, for which the state has no exact figures. The main reason for this unprecedented wealth is a new goal set by Patriarch Daniel: that the Church soaks up as much public money as it can. This is being achieved through a network of influence with political ties which is headed by the Patriarch himself. Our lord, Patriarch Daniel... He uses his position to win the support of high-ranking politicians for Church projects. We give this decoration of the Order of the Holy Brâncoveanu Martyrs for his future help, too. Beneath him are several tiers of people who run the system that draws in public cash. First, there are Church figures who report directly to him and liaise with public institutions on the Church’s behalf. Then there are politicians and civil servants in parties and institutions who pull strings so that political leaders' promises to the Patriarch are kept. At the bottom are businessmen who pick up public money shared out by the Church: its “preferred suppliers”. We tried for months to find a way into this watertight network so we could track the public money that all but disappears after entering the Church's coffers. Eventually, we found a way in. - Let’s go! - Hello! Petrescu! Lazăr Neacșu is serving a second term as a PSD Bucharest city councillor. Before getting into politics, he owned construction firms that were hired by the Church. Sources had told us he was a Church "fixer" who pulled strings to extract cash from councils. As the Church never answers questions about how it spends public money, we felt the only way to find out was to go undercover and talk to Church figures under an assumed identity. I've not been here since the revamp, it's great! - No? - No. These are our rooms. We contacted Neacșu under the alias ‘Gabriel Petrescu’ and said we represented a consultancy with ties to the political new wave. As councils had overlooked the Church when budgeting for this year, we told him we could make up for this with EU funding. To make our cover story more plausible, our bogus businessman said that he'd been put onto Neacșu by a councillor close to the mayor of Bucharest and was a member of USR PLUS, a party in government at the time. So ‘Gabriel Petrescu’ had council and government ties. All this was untrue, but it sounded good to an opposition politician in a position to broker backroom deals at City Hall. So Neacșu didn't check out our story and invited ‘Gabriel Petrescu’ to his council office. First, he gets us to leave our phones in another room. Leave your phones in there and we'll talk in here. Hello! - I take it this [ashtray] means I can smoke? - Yes. Mask off, as I'm jabbed. This is a smoking room where we councillors lark about. Okay. Neacșu explains the legal process by which churches in Bucharest receive public funds and then stresses his own importance in it. All churches in capital cities, especially in Europe, receive funds from local or city councils. Full stop. Every year, priests at all 259 churches and 10 monasteries across Bucharest ask the city council for help with various things as allowed by law. - X, Y, Z, okay... - Right. From that list of over 100 churches, a team is put together, it’s made up of... Aren’t agreements reached separately with each...? That'd be a hassle. Then the Monuments Authority man comes to the mayor and says: “We need to talk to someone at the council to see who wants what…” I’m a member of the Church Assembly. - What? - Church Assembly. - What’s that? - The National Church Assembly. Neacșu explains to us in detail the make-up of this governing body of the Church. The Romanian Orthodox Church is run by 45 bishops... - I didn't know there were so many! - And 45 laypeople... - Okay. - Ordinary people who... - Like civilians. - Romania’s elite… Like parishioners. I'm there with the head of the Notaries Society, Ioan Aurel Pop, Noica, all of high society. - You only get in if you’re in the elite. - That rules me out! Or if you’ve done things for the Church that distinguish you. We later unearthed TV footage attesting to Neacșu's own good deeds. In the village of Muntenii de Sus, which is over 300 years old, a church was built with the support of Lazăr Neacșu, a man devoted to his birthplace. Neacșu has long been close to the Patriarch. Five years ago, he rose to the highest office a layman can reach in the Church: Member of the National Church Assembly, a kind of parliament presided over by the Patriarch that sits annually. Neacșu was parachuted into politics by the Church. He told us he'd joined the PSD at the urging of Patriarch Daniel, who is nicknamed the "Great White” within his network of influence. I’m a businessman, things were slack in 2016. - I wasn't a politician originally. - Okay... I was a member of the National Assembly. I asked the Great White which party I should join to become a councillor. "Join the PSD, it'll win by a landslide!" - And it did, didn't it? - Seriously? Of course. He was in the Securitate. He knows more than anyone, like the Pope. In the 2016 local elections, Neacșu became a PSD councillor in Bucharest. For the Church, a man in a position like that is a godsend. Bucharest City Council has the biggest budget of any Romanian local authority and votes on all funding requests from churches in the city. Neacșu votes in the Church’s favour and lobbies other councillors to vote grants through. 2016-2020 was a busy time for him. When Gabriela Firea was mayor, the council gave the Church funding totalling nearly RON 200 million for the cathedral and churches across the city. No one knows what the Church does with this money. To find out, we had to go higher up in the network, with Neacșu’s help. After we'd said we could secure EU funds for renovations of "historic monument" churches, he introduced us to members of the Patriarch’s inner circle. Have you got access to EU funds? Yes, more than access. I’ll take you to the Archdiocese and talk to the EU funds boss. He'll tell you which churches are monuments. You can start on them directly. Plus they’ve got church halls, parish houses, priests’ houses… We can do the designs... A few days later, we meet Neacșu outside the Chancery of the Church's Holy Synod. - Didn't you see me here? - I wanted to have a word first. Hi! - I'll shut this... - Should I kiss their hands? - We never do that. - I'm being serious. - No, just say hello. - So I won't bother with... Hello! - I'm Father Aurel Mihai. - Hello! Gabi Petrescu. - Gabi? - Petrescu. Petrescu... Have a seat. You’re beside the Great White… The Great White? Is that what you call him? Can you come here? For European [funds]… Aurel Mihai is the suffragan bishop of the Archdiocese of Bucharest and one of the Patriarch’s deputies. He liaises between the Patriarch and public institutions. We're dealing here with one of the most powerful men in the Church. You tell me what you do and I’ll tell you what I do. It's crowded in here. Let’s get to know each other. My role is to deal with authorities. I see. The council, councils. Suffragan Bishop Mihai seems very interested in getting EU funds but insists that churches won't contribute. This is to get around the law and avoid co-financing. Can these funds be accessed without us involving the parish financially? Let me ask my superiors about that. I was saying maybe we should settle a payment notice. Yes, the co-financing. You can't. - But parishes can't, Vali. - But you can't... - His project's worth a million euros! - But co-financing's mandatory… Going and talking to the council later, that's another matter. The message coming from the room is clear: the Church can only receive money, not spend it. Lazăr Neacșu immediately boasts that he can arrange public co-financing. I’ll sort out the co-financing, or you two will, with funds from the district council or the city council or Opaschi [Secretary of State for Faiths]. So we've got three funding sources. Now you’ve got a man you can rely on to do something. And I can get 20% from the district councils. If I go to Piedone, I can sort out 20%. With the co-financing issue resolved, Aurel Mihai stresses an important point: no Church deal can be sealed without an all-important blessing. After the next meeting, we’ll draw up a document informing His Beatitude. And if we hold this meeting and get his approval, we'll be fine... If our Patriarch's a very good manager, people'll say he only cares about money. What's he supposed to do? Hold services so money falls from heaven? No, he makes do with what he's got. The meeting ends on an optimistic note but with a reminder that the Patriarch has the final say. - We'll get the blessing and meet... - We'll draw up a document. - So the blessing's the priority. - It is for us. Before leaving, we fix up another meeting to decide how the EU funds will be divvied up. A FEW WEEKS LATER A few weeks later, we hire a flash set of wheels because we’re off to Patriarchate Hill and we need to look like big-league businessmen. Outside, we're met by Lazăr Neacșu, our contact. - I funded this consolidation recently. - What, this? When I was on the Culture Committee. He means the Culture Committee at City Hall, which approves funding for churches and was chaired by him from 2016 to 2020. He says all the recent renovations here were funded with public money he secured. - It's nice here. - Yes, I did it two years ago. I added this lift too. - Hello! - Welcome! - Thank you! - Come in! The engineer's the coordinating advisor in the Monuments and Church Buildings Division… With the introductions over, we try to find out how the Church spends public money. Mircea Podoleanu, the Patriarch’s coordinating advisor, explains. This is what I’d like to know. I’ll cut to the chase. We're only talking in principle anyway, please speak your mind. Okay. How does it work when the Church hires a contractor? Is it like state procurement? Don't you publish in SICAP or... No, we don’t publish in SICAP. If the value's over 100,000, for works, there's a tender process. Okay. A specification is drawn up with measurements, eligibility requirements, all the… A notice is put in the newspaper, Lumina. It has the biggest circulation of any paper in Romania. The Patriarch's advisor is saying that the Church doesn't use the state procurement system. It does everything in house under its own rules. This gives it a very free hand, and our sources told us that Church tender processes are always won by the intended winner. So we venture to ask the key question. How can we be sure we'll win a tender process or two? Because we're not running a charity here. - For consultancy? - Yes. Well, it works like this. You bring us a package, okay? When we get His Beatitude’s approval, that’s worth more than any guarantee in Strasbourg, so don't worry. - Okay. - You see? Also, because I’m guilty of the sin of gluttony too, I'd like to ask: if we get the go-ahead, can we also take on part of the works as subcontractors or intermediaries? Or... Bring your portfolio showing you’re up to the job and name the firms…. - Yes, I'm not talking SRL-Ds… - Come to Mr Podoleanu. He'll take it from there. He'll tell the Patriarch about you, you'll get the blessing and then there won't be any changes. As the meeting ends, Neacșu tells the Church figures why it's a good idea to accept the terms just outlined: because, as we told him, we're a politically connected firm that gets hold of money and then asks to keep a cut, in time-honoured fashion. If you sign a consultancy contract with him, the money's guaranteed. Like with the PDL and PSD firms. The contracts are guaranteed… which makes sense. The Church figures seem familiar with this set-up and are itching to get going. Before we leave, Aurel Mihai stresses one last point to us. To get things going, we'll have to keep on at them a bit because the system's a bit slow. Okay. We've got to say: there's money up for grabs here, let's get it. Are they reluctant, or what? It's not that. Well, because of those past experiences. Also, the faster we move, the sooner His Beatitude gives his blessing, let's beat the councils to it. We leave in shock after two hours of talks with two highly influential men in the Patriarch’s entourage about rigging EU-funded tender processes. Outside, what we heard is confirmed. Lazăr Neacșu catches up with us and explains how the Church rigs tender processes. Let me explain... Lumina's a newspaper, it's their procurement system. So you need to know when to buy it. Only one paper comes out a day and no one buys it. You need to submit a list, A to Z. You say: "I want these firms to do the work for you." We give them to Podoleanu. He publishes and okays them. How can I be sure no one else will buy the paper…? No, you don't get it. The specification goes to the firms named by you or me, I'll name a couple too. - If I go to a newsstand and buy Lumina… - It's not on general sale! It only comes out in churches. Don’t you get it? You see? - I’m getting funny looks for smoking. - Take no notice. Lumina's not on general sale, it's only in churches. You see? And who goes to church to make money? No one. - What'll some old biddy do with that rag? - If she sees a tender notice… It’s no use to her. You misunderstood… - That’s what was worrying me… - I'll explain. You name 20 firms and say: I want them to work, I’ll finance them for you. Job done! - Whoa! That's fantastic! - Yes! A state within a state. - Great! - You see? We soon learn that the Church is unwilling to rig tender processes solely in favour of our chosen firms. It has its own stable of firms that we'll have to share the cash with. The day after the meeting at Patriarchate Hill, we get a missed call from Aurel Mihai. - Hello, Father! - Oh, Gabriel, may God give you health! I was just thinking of you. We're already working on that document to officialise the marriage. - Yes. - I've talked to a builder friend of mine and he'd like to meet you. - We can meet for a coffee. - About the same matter. - Can I give him your number? - By all means! - He's young, like you, educated, discreet... - By all means! Give him my number and I'll gladly have a coffee with him. Fine. He has some goals that he… Yes? So that things go well. - Yes. Great. Okay. - God bless! All the best! So for things to go well, we must work with the Church's firms. We've reached the third level of the network through which the Church draws in and shares out public money. - Hello! Gabriel Petrescu? - Petrescu, yes. Who's this? - Marian Iorga. Bishop Aurel Mihai gave me your number. - Oh, hello! Yes, he mentioned you. So we’re due to have a coffee. - When you're free... - How about tomorrow morning? - Nine's perfect. - Yes? Great. Thanks. See you then! - Thanks. Bye! - Bye! THE NEXT DAY - Hi! - Morning! We meet Iorga at his Bucharest office. Some water. I'm thirsty... - Still? Coffee? - Still. And a coffee. What's this? St Elijah, main façade. Is that going to be done? For a priest? We've just designed it. And I’m repairing a centre. I submitted a tender today. Repairs... A project worth nearly EUR 1 million and repairs at a centre. But the project worth EUR 1 million is small beer in this office. These files are unfunded projects. - Are these churches? - Yes, each one's a contract. - Holy moly! They're all contracts? - Yeah, mate... How long have you worked with these guys? Wow. These haven’t gone ahead. - The finished jobs aren't here… - Right. So these are contracts for church restorations that Iorga got before funding was in place for them. These are councils you’ve already talked to? Why doesn’t the Monuments Authority give them any more? Or district councils... I submit everywhere, at district council halls and the Monuments Authority… So you do the legwork, not the priests. What could a priest do? Seriously? You see? I go and submit them everywhere. Wherever I get money, I work. As a businessman, Iorga has no authority to submit documentation to councils and request public funding. But he does this on parishes' behalf because he's more than a contractor. He's a lynchpin in the network through which the Church wangles money from councils. Beneath this level made up of businessmen are rank-and-file priests whose only role is to keep their heads bowed and take orders from above. While we're in Iorga’s office, he sees a priest who's awaiting funding for the restoration of his church. - The priest's here. - Send him in. - In you come. - Hello! - Christ is risen! - He is risen indeed! I’m here as promised. At one o’clock. - Actually, I’m late, sorry. Four minutes. - That's okay. Father, I’ve been as much as four days late… Have a seat. I forgive you now. - The priest from Oțetari with the monument... - Ah, okay. Hello. Yes, a monument dating to 1600. There’s an area behind the Intercontinental. We want to do it. Okay. If it’s a monument, great. Do you want green energy? - To get off that smelly old gas? - Why not? - Yes? - Yes. - You can put it here. - Has the council money come through? - Yes. - Already? - Yes. - Roughly how much? I don't know. - About 700,000. - That’s not much. For now. Although his parish has received council funding, the priest from Oțetari is looking to Iorga for financing. Minutes later, the businessman gets off the phone and gives him good news. - You might get more money from District 2. - Yes? They don’t want to give any to other churches. Only centres and monuments. The council phoned me, they want to redistribute the rest of the money to centres and monuments, but... - In Mihaiu’s district? - Yes. But on Friday, when I talked to the bishop and the city manager, he said it was okay with the bishop. I said if it’s okay with the bishop, can we put in a couple? He said we'd talk on Monday. - But now it’s not okay with the bishop. - Aurel? Money sometimes comes to the less well off! To understand how priests come to be under the thumb of construction firm bosses, let's look at how churches receive public money. To get a grant, a church must submit a file of documents to the authorities to show it needs repairs. It must pay construction experts to carry out surveys and draw up a renovation proposal. But because the Church's policy is not to spend its own money, its chosen firms are called in at this initial stage. They draw up a proposal and recoup their costs later. Then the tender process takes place as explained by Lazăr Neacșu: a notice in Lumina is read by the intended winner, who gets the job – usually the firm that wrote the proposal. The priest confirms that this is how it works. A project proposal is drawn up. It goes off to be approved. They check and okay it. Then the proposal's used for a tender process with a quote. And it's won by whoever did the proposal... Yes, but it has to be okay because they use a program… We've had cock-ups in the past. - You didn't get what you said… - Yes. That's what I asked at the Archdiocese: how can we be sure of winning if we get hold of the money? Because we’re laying out the cash. Of course you’ll win. That’s natural, right? I think… If it was up to me, I’d say: “Why don’t you just let the work start?” We faff around so much... “The guy’s okay. Let him get on with the work. He’s got the cash…” Because otherwise you don’t get anything done… Give you a proposal? The church can’t do that, it’s a specialist thing and it can't afford to contract it out. “Hey, Father, pay EUR 10,000.” How can he? - I mean, realistically… - Yes. You can only get it from a builder who covers the costs so priests don't have to. Usually, like I said, when I start on a job, I do it from scratch and cover the costs till it's funded. When it’s funded, I tell the priest: the proposal was EUR 10,000, the proposal must be paid for. The funding covers it. Yes, not the poor box. But I don’t influence the job. If the job's EUR 100k and the proposal's EUR 10k, the work has to be EUR 90k. Yes, so there's no overlap. So it equals what you’re given… And, again, local councils can’t fund the proposal. I include the proposal in the price of the job, you see? - So it wasn’t a waste of time. - Yes. Because the designer will want payment. Iorga talks as if this is all above board, but in fact, it’s a conflict of interest. The proposal explaining why the work is needed is drawn up by the firm that will do the work. Iorga then pays for it out of the public funds allocated for the work. This suggests the construction firm's boss is free to decide his costs and profit. This is a perk of working with the Church, the only entity that receives public money without any direct state oversight. Iorga opens the cupboard again. I'll show you an example. Let’s take one of these. Cașin. Have you worked at Cașin too? No, we've no funding there yet. What'll you do there? Repairs for RON 2 million. 10 plus 5. 15%. That’s your profit. In theory, profit's 5%, indirect costs are 10%. But you’ll never spend 10% on indirect costs. I see, okay. To understand the terms used by Iorga, let’s take the example of a church renovation. Direct costs are all the actual costs of the work, from materials to labour. The firm's profit is 5% of the total direct costs. But 10% of the direct costs is set aside for costs not directly related to the work. These can be admin costs, accounting and other services supporting the firm's activity and not the work per se. These are indirect costs, and as Iorga himself admits, they can never reach 10% of the cost of the work. - You play around with indirect costs. - You have to know... Lately, we’ve been doing 10 for indirect costs and 10 for profit. Uh-huh, okay. And your total net profit's 15%. - After the actual costs? - Yes. But there's also a hidden profit. Builders play around with not only their profit and indirect costs, but also the prices of materials and labour to push up the total job price. Chiajna Monastery is one of hundreds of renovation jobs funded with council money in Bucharest in recent years. The contract was won in 2018 by Solid System Solutions, one of Iorga’s firms. We obtained documents stating the costs of this work and checked them with experts in the quote calculation software used by most Romanian builders, including Iorga. Every process has a code, and when it's entered, the average market price is shown. We compared these averages with Iorga's quotes for Chiajna Monastery and found that his firm massively inflated the costs. While we can't comment on materials without knowing their quality, there's no doubt that Iorga charged way above the market prices for labour. For example, for cutting through welded steel plumbing pipes with a hand saw, his firm quoted a labour price of RON 32 per unit, whereas the software gives a price of just RON 3.60 – nearly 10 times less. As for decorative plastering, his firm plastered 320 square metres at a labour cost of over RON 9,000, or RON 28 per square metre. It used an old code that's becoming obsolete, but experts told us that three years ago, when the work was done, the cost of this work could not have exceeded RON 15 per square metre. And here’s a simple final example: painting with washable paint. Iorga quoted a labour price of RON 5,700 for 225 square metres at Chiajna Monastery. That’s nearly four times the market price. To get a better idea, imagine a workman bills you over RON 5,000 for going over the walls and ceiling of your three-room flat with a roller. If that seems outrageous, you've already paid prices like these because Iorga's invoices were paid with public money. - Are these churches? - Yes, each one's a contract. Iorga, a preferred supplier of the Church, has won dozens of contracts for council-funded church renovations in Bucharest in recent years. These haven’t gone ahead. The finished jobs aren't here... These haven't gone ahead. But Iorga isn't the Church's only preferred supplier. Other favoured firms have also landed renovation contracts. To find out how much public money is spent on church construction and renovation, we asked Bucharest City Council, district councils and the State Secretariat for Faiths for details of grants to Bucharest churches since Patriarch Daniel took office in 2008. The whole amount – RON 1.3 billion – was taken in taxes from the public and given to the Church. Not one penny of this mountain of money was spent without the blessing of the Patriarch, who approved every job. After three months of talking to Church figures and finding out how these huge sums are shared out, we suddenly broke off contact. We lay low for a few weeks and then made contact again under our real identity. First, we met Mr Iorga, who'd just splashed out on a new motor. - Good morning, Mr Iorga. - Good morning. My name’s Ilie, we’ve met before. We’re making a documentary about how the Church spends public money. That’s why we met before. We want to ask about the inflated prices in your firms’ quotes for district councils and the city council. Is this an interview? We're trying to find out where the surplus cash goes… Please email any questions to me. The prices aren’t inflated at all. They’re real prices, market prices. But they depend on the brief. There's one price for plaster like this, and other prices for other kinds of plaster. We asked other firms for quotes. Your prices are up to 10 times higher. For Chiajna Monastery, for example. Email your questions to me and I’ll answer them, no problem. But what are you, a journalist? In what capacity do you submit documentation for the Church? We have a recording of you… We don’t do that on the Church's behalf. We submit tenders… No, you submit it to authorities. At District 2 Council Hall. Instead of priests. Never. - You say that in a recording… - I never go to District 2 Hall or the council. - You might get more money from District 2. - Yes? I submit at district council halls, the Monuments Authority... So you do the legwork, not the priests. What could a priest do? I go and submit them everywhere. Wherever I get money, I work. - Do you have a special relationship with the Church? - No. For me, in general, it's business. It's a client. If I can work for it, fine. If not, okay. If I have a contract with it, I don’t care where its money comes from. How do you get so many contracts from churches? Through Lumina, of course. All Church tender processes are announced in it. You can’t find them anywhere else. If I go to a newsstand and buy Lumina… It's not on general sale! It only comes out in churches. Don’t you get it? The next person we tried to confront was Lazăr Neacșu, who'd told us in detail how Church tender processes are rigged. As council meetings were being held online, we went to his home. He didn’t answer. The network was on its guard. He later drove off in a luxury car and wouldn't stop. We got hold of him on the phone. Hello, Mr Neacșu. I'm Victor Ilie, a reporter with Recorder. How are you, Mr Gabriel Petrescu with the EU funds? - Didn’t you meet me as an EU funds expert? - Yes. - Mr Petrescu, I got your message. - Yes, but my real name's Victor Ilie. - Mr Petrescu… - Yes, go ahead. - I’m at City Hall, come here if you want. - Okay. - Come here, yes. - We'll be right there. - Are you at City Hall? - Never you mind where I am. We’re at City Hall. I’m in EU Funds with Mr Gabriel Petrescu. - Any questions, talk to Mr… - This is a kind of research. It's the only way we could research matters of public interest. I don’t care about those. I’m an honest man who saw you… We met officially at City Hall, you said you handled EU funds. Was that all? When I was Mr Petrescu, you told me how tendering's rigged through Lumina. Nothing's rigged, that has nothing to do with me, I’m not interested. I'll rephrase this. Aren’t you in a conflict of interest… He's gone. Our final showdown was with Aurel Mihai. We met him after a service. - Hello, Father. - God bless you! I'm Victor Ilie, a reporter from Recorder. I talked to you before as Gabriel Petrescu. Why? We’re making a video documentary about how the Church spends public funds and we're investigating your role in this. But this is a church. I know, we met in church on the previous occasions too… Especially because you've been unfair to me and a lot of people. You used the name Petrescu. I'm sorry. Yes, it was the only way we could find out how the Orthodox Church spends public funds. And we’ve got recordings of you saying we could rig tender processes for public funds. I can’t say something like that. - Shall we listen to what you said? - Yes, if you like. Let me explain. Firstly, it’s not part of my job. You bring us a package, okay? When we get His Beatitude’s approval, that’s worth more than any guarantee in Strasbourg, so don't worry. Okay. So I didn’t do... I wasn't involved. And I’m sorry, I was expecting you to show more… I don't know... ...moral integrity. May I go? Are you friends with Marian Iorga? - Pardon? - Are you friends? No. We’re acquainted, but we’re not friends. I've talked to a builder friend of mine and he'd like to meet you. Gladly. He has some goals that he… Yes? So that things go well. Yes. To be honest, we call everyone friends. In the biblical sense of the word. The fact that he attends some church events, when there are processions and whatnot, I think this shows… I’m just saying, a… Lazăr Neacșu says Mr Iorga's quite simply your crony. Oh, yes, sure. Yes? Yes? A few months earlier, the bishop had been far less humble. At our final undercover meeting, we had worked out how to access money and he'd assured us that if we got through all the Church’s filters, we'd join a blessed system that always comes out on top. JUNE 2021 What's the feedback? I spoke to His Beatitude. He has no objections. The problem is... the advisor in charge of monuments and church buildings. - Was he at the meeting too? - Yes, the older one. He's not clear on the situation… who we make the funding request to, who manages the money, who authorises payments… - So I should explain the legal workings to him. - Exactly. I see. So that’s what he needs now for things to go without a hitch. Okay. Iorga also said we’ll need some kind of accreditation, a kind of… To sign a contract with any church, we need approval, accreditation… - It’s not clear to me, if you can explain… - I think you need the blessing. So that's what it is. Okay, now it's clearer to me... To be honest, it’s not easy to get into our system, but then you’ll have a very protective hat, you won’t get rained on… It's quite reliable. And everything goes to the boss. Yes? All of the questions and official requests we sent to the Romanian Orthodox Church before and after this investigation ended hit a wall of silence. AN INVESTIGATION BY Victor Ilie EDITORS Mihai Voinea & Cristian Delcea GRAPHICS Ionuț Duinea ARTWORK Mircea Drăgoi CAMERA David Muntean & Cristian Delcea THANKS TO Valeriu Nicolae EU Funding Expert THANKS TO Ovidiu Vanghele THANKS TO Luiza Vasiliu This documentary could not have been made without donations from Recorder's viewers www.recorder.ro/sustine ENGLISH SUBTITLES Peter Shortall & Florin Ular

Info

Channel: Recorder

Views: 3,994,969

Rating: undefined out of 5

Keywords:

Id: qHTgt82ZGPM

Channel Id: undefined

Length: 51min 35sec (3095 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 12 2021