Raids at the Liberty Galați plant. The plant's bosses are accused by prosecutors of tax evasion of 300 million euros.

On Friday morning, the authorities raided the Liberty Galați steel plant, investigating the embezzlement of Eximbank loans amounting to approximately 300 million euros. Liberty Galați is currently undergoing a preventive concordat procedure, a measure intended to avoid insolvency, recently approved by creditors and the court, along with a restructuring plan.

The company has total debts of approximately one billion euros, of which the Romanian state needs to recover about 500 million euros, including two lines of financing from EximBank (300 million euros) and receivables to ANAF (200 million euros).

Liberty Galați received loans of nearly 1.5 billion lei from the state bank Eximbank, funds granted by the government through a guarantee scheme for companies affected by the war in Ukraine, as reported by Economedia. It is unclear whether Eximbank can still recover the amount, given the precarious situation of the company.

The General Prosecutor's Office claims that some of the acts of tax evasion and embezzlement were carried out through transactions with the Russian company Gazprom.