How did the criminal group led by Călin Georgescu operate, and who are the other people in the fraud case?

Călin Georgescu was taken into custody on Monday by DIICOT prosecutors in a fraud case in which the former presidential candidate appears as the leader, coordinating Italian citizen Massimiliano Arena, presented as the director of Wealth Bank, and businessman Ionel Rusen, with the aim of obtaining unjust patrimonial benefits.

“The leader assigned the other two members clear roles within the criminal scheme devised, presenting them as prosperous businessmen, administrators of foreign companies that allegedly had large sums of money available to lend to injured parties intending to develop their businesses in Romania, subject to the payment of financial guarantees. Thus, according to the roles they assumed, the perpetrators acted by misleading and keeping Romanian businesspeople in error regarding the possibility of accessing financing from foreign banking financial institutions, with the organized crime group members’ objective being to obtain the financial guarantees deposited by the injured parties in order to access the respective loans,” the DIICOT statement says.

According to News.ro, the case originated in 2021, when businessman Răzvan Leu allegedly sought financing for a project involving gold transactions. According to his complaint, Călin Georgescu allegedly introduced him to Ionel Rusen, who subsequently allegedly put him in contact with Italian citizen Massimiliano Arena, presented as a representative of a financial institution.

Leu claims that he was promised financing of six million euros in exchange for a financial guarantee and that he allegedly transferred approximately 1.1 million euros. After the money was not provided, he allegedly requested the return of the sum, and in 2024 he filed a complaint with DIICOT.

In 2025, DIICOT confirmed that the investigation concerned an alleged fraud and that judicial steps had been taken in several states. Prosecutors had requested information and evidence from the United Kingdom, Italy, and Switzerland.

The mechanism described by DIICOT on Monday morning resembles, according to News.ro, the one reported by Răzvan Leu.

Judicial sources cited by HotNews say that Georgescu and Rusen defrauded a businessman, promising him that they could obtain a loan for him from a bank in Switzerland, on condition that he deposited a guarantee of one million euros. The money was transferred, but the promised financing did not materialize.

Investigators are also examining a subsequent request to increase the financing to 15 million euros, following which a further 100,000 euros was allegedly transferred.