The Prosecutor General reopens the file in which former President Traian Basescu is accused of money laundering. The case concerns the real estate transactions with businessman Costel Căşuneanu.
Basescu is no longer president, therefore he has no immunity. That means among other things that he has many accounts to give before prosecutors because several case files expect him which were suspended during the time he spent at Cotroceni.
On August 9, 2000, Traian Basescu and businessman Costel Căşuneanu bought from the same owner one plot of 3,700 sqm in Privighetorilor Alley. The land was located right next to the Zoo, one of the most expensive areas of Bucharest, the market price at the time was of about 200 euro / sqm. But Basescu pays very little for it: 1,483,244,000 ROL. The same day, Căşuneanu pays the same owner, in the same area four times more.
Two years later, on October 14, 2002, Basescu sell this land at the exorbitant price of about 12 billion old lei, while the real estate boom was not yet triggered. The buyer is Gabriela Blaj of Oituz. In a statement made before the cameras, Basescu later admitted that the real buyer was Căşuneanu.
The money from this transaction was used by Basescu to justify the acquisition of a villa in Otopeni against 280,000 dollars, he donated the mansion to his daughter Ioana.
The business deals were concluded in the period in which Traian Basescu was minister of Transport and then Mayor of Bucharest, institutions with which Căşuneanu ‘s companies had numerous contracts with public funds.
The transactions between Basescu and Căşuneanu came to the attention of the National Office for Preventing and Combating Money Laundering which opened in September 2004 a case file. But the case was closed immediately after Basescu became president.