Claudio Cretu was taken under judicial control by the DNA on September 9 evening and banned from performing his duties. The businessman left the headquarters of the anti-corruption body shortly after 22:00 after a two-hour interrogation.
Valeriu Slivinschi, brother of a Moldovan businessman linked to Lukoil, is a suspect in the same case, official sources told Romanian publication G4Media. He is suspected of bribing Elcen with 40,000 Romanian lei (153,000 Moldovan lei) to pay invoices and contracts, the quoted sources said.
Electrocentrale București S.A. (ELCEN) is a Romanian legal entity, a joint stock company. It was established in December 2002 as a subsidiary of S.C. Termoelectrica S.A. through the reorganization of this trading company. Currently, the main shareholder of the company is the Romanian Ministry of Energy, holding 97.51% of the shares, with the remaining shares held by SNGN Romgaz (2.49%).
The company’s field of activity is production, transportation, distribution, dispatching and sale of thermal energy, as well as production and sale of electricity. ELCEN is the largest producer of thermal energy in Romania (40%) and in Bucharest (90%). According to ANRE’s Electricity Market Monitoring Report for January 2025, ELCEN’s share in the national electricity market is about 5.5%.
ELCEN consists of four thermal power plants and a repair plant in Bucharest. The installed electric capacity of the power plants is 586.25 MW and the thermal capacity is 1,736.38 Gcal/h. In 2024, the total electricity generation amounted to 1,578,409.4 MW⋅hand the heat output to 3,569,733.65 Gcal.
The brother of the alleged bribe-taker, Victor Slivinschi, controls the Moldovan company Turboenergy Power, which in December 2024 submitted the only bid to participate in the tender announced by Elcen for the second phase of the reconstruction and modernization of the 100 Gcal/L peak thermal capacity at CET Sud. The value of the turnkey contract is estimated at almost RON 25.6 million (MDL 98 million) plus VAT.
This year Victor Slivinski, according to the Moldovan press, attempted a hostile takeover of a military plant in Chisinau. His business rise began in 2015 with a deal with Russian company Lukoil. Despite his proximity to Romania, he holds anti-Western rather than pro-Russian views. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, Slivinski ran as an independent candidate, airing an anti-NATO campaign video in which he claimed that Voronin, who was in conflict with Putin at the time, wanted to make Americans slaves and start a war, the Romanian publication said.
