Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) prosecutors have detained one person in the case of Black Cube Israeli company employees charged with harassing National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) Director Laura Codruta Kovesi.
Thus, on 13 September 2016, DIICOT prosecutors ordered defendant Dragomir Daniel to be taken into custody for a period of 24 hours. He is accused of forming a crime ring and of instigating the illegal accessing of an IT system, the unauthorised transfer of IT data, illegal operations with IT devices and programmes, IT forgery (continued offence) and the violation of the confidentiality of mail, DIICOT points out in a communique.
“In this case, there is reasonable suspicion that in order to achieve a precise criminal goal, through another person, defendant Dragomir Daniel contacted one of the suspects, representative of Israeli company “BlackCube,” letting him know his strategy and goal, namely compromising persons whom he considered responsible for the fact that he had been indicted by the National Anticorruption Directorate. In the first months of 2016, on February 1 and March 16, defendant Dragomir Daniel had two meetings in Bucharest with suspect D.Z., the two talking about the context and the need for the operation, the goal and the alleged persons who were behind the operation and who were interested in its success, as well as the nature and all concrete conditions of the investigative, intelligence-gathering and intrusive operations (also including the search for and the obtaining of the targets’ electronic mail), the negotiation and agreement on the budget, the manner of payment and the success fee, as well as the manner of disseminating the result to the international press, for the prompt attainment of the objective established,” the DIICOT communique reads.
According to the document, in March-April 2016, at defendant Dragomir Daniel’s direct request for the “Tornado” operation to start, on the orders of suspects D.Z. and A.Y. and under the direct coordination of suspect G.F., defendant Geclowicz David, being in the possession of sufficient personal data of certain persons targeted, contacted by phone, on repeated occasions, persons close to the Director of the DNA and, using fraudulent means (“scenarios”), managed to persuade them to disclose the details of their email accounts, details that the defendant offered to co-defendant Weiner Ron in order for the criminal activity to continue.
“Next in their criminal operation, defendant Weiner Ron, using the credentials of the three legitimate owners, illegally (without their permission) accessed their email accounts by using the IDs and passwords obtained as a result of the IT forgery. The data was then transferred on storage units put at their disposal by their coordinators, and was prepared to be handed over to defendant Yossi Barkshtein. Weiner Ron and Geclowicz David carried out their criminal activity on Romania’s territory, the two staying at a hotel in Bucharest from March 29 to April 2. As a result of the operations to apprehend Weiner Ron and Geclowicz David on April 2, defendant Yossi Barkshtein, who had entered the country on the morning of that same day, was no longer able to get hold of the compromised confidential data and, on hearing about the operation carried out by the Romanian judicial authorities, left Romania on that same afternoon, entering Bulgaria through the Giurgiu border crossing point and taking a flight to London shortly thereafter.
Thus, defendant Dragomir Daniel and suspect D.Z. formed a crime ring in order to carry out the criminal activities meant to lead to the attainment of the project’s objective, including activities of an intrusive nature, the former determining the criminal initiatives, accepting their illicit consequences and then supporting them and putting at their disposal data on the persons to investigate,” the DIICOT communique adds.
The action was carried out by judicial police officers from the Cybercrime Service (DCCO) and the Violent Criminal Groups Service (DGPMB).
The Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) offered its support in some parts of the investigations, DIICOT informs.
Judicial sources stated for Agerpres that Daniel Dragomir is a former SRI officer, who used to be the chief of the informative-operative group within the General Directorate for the Prevention and Fighting of Terrorism in SRI. Daniel Dragomir was sent to court in 2015 by the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA), being charged with influence peddling and money laundering.
According to the release of DIICOT, Daniel Dragomir got in touch, through a certain person, with an official of the Isreali Black Cube Company, whom he shared his strategy and his goal with, respectively the defamation of some persons that he considered responsible for his having been sent to court by the National Anticorruption Directorate. He allegedly would have paid GBP 900.000 to Black Cube for setting up the structure to spy DNA’s Kovesi.
