A National Anticorruption Department indictment on the name of ex-prime minister Adrian Nastase and that of the former head of the Office for Money Laundering Prevention (ONPCSB) shows that the two had a “Mafia-style” understanding in what prosecutors say was a money laundering scheme that helped Nastase clean up his family accounts over unexplained incomes amounting to hundreds of

thousands of dollars. The indictment says the communication between Nastase and ex-ONPCSB head Ioan Melinescu developed “without explicit requests or proposals, but in a silent manner”, as the NewsIn news agency and other media have reported.

Nastase, who headed the Social Democratic (PSD) government between 2000 and 2004, has been indicted in a case involving the transfers of about 400,000 USD from one account to another in a scheme that also allegedly involved his wife, Dana Nastase.

The case is known locally as the “Aunt Tamara” case, after the name of an aunt of Dana Nastase’s who they claimed left her fortune to them.

But much of the indictment is based on statements of a businessman, Genica Boerica, and traces of information from an ONPCSB file that has gone missing and is almost impossible to re-assemble.

The case says that in November 2000, Melinescu, at the time a member of the ONPCSB board, contacted then-deputy Adrian Nastase through another controversial person, Ristea Briboi. Melinescu thus informed Nastase that the Office was analyzing a file at the request of High Court prosecutors regarding an account of Dana Nastase’s where about 400,000 USD had been deposited.

The indictment claims Melinescu promised Nastase to block the case until after the December 2000 elections and suggested the case should disappear. Nastase allegedly agreed.

Melinescu allegedly promised Nastase, then, to solve the case as a “gift”, suggesting that the then-ONPCSB head Adrian Cucu should be replace. Shortly after becoming prime minister as a result of the 2000 elections, Nastase responded by naming Melinescu head of the Office.

Much of the information in the indictment comes from Genica Boerica, a Craiova, south Romania-based businessman sentenced to 8 years in prison last year for several economic crimes but who’s file is currently reconsidered, Boerica at large.

The original file involving Dana Nastase’s unjustified account deposit could no longer be found, DNA prosecutors say.