DNA raids: money laundering at Constanța's NATO naval bases, Mykonos flight passenger also implicated

The Romanian National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) conducted searches on Wednesday in Constanța County in a tax evasion and money laundering case linked to the port servicing of NATO warships. According to G4Media, the investigation concerns a company called Global Defense Logistics SRL, whose managing director and 10.38 percent owner is Gabriel Daraban, commercial director of Oil Terminal, the state-owned company that operates the oil terminal in Constanța, while its largest shareholder, with 48.18 percent, is Moran Tevfik Lutfi. Gabriel Daraban is the brother of Mihai Daraban, president of the Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIR), and was among the passengers of that July private jet trip to Mykonos, which carried a Constitutional Court judge, judges, politicians, businesspeople, and our own dear “Lóci” Antal. According to the DNA, the searches were carried out at three locations — in private individuals' homes and at the company's headquarters.

According to the DNA, the investigation is part of an internationally coordinated operation supported by Eurojust, the European Union's Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation. In the same operation, five people were detained in Norway, and searches were carried out at private homes and company headquarters, while in Germany locations were searched on the basis of a European Investigation Order. According to the prosecutor's office, the case is being handled by a joint investigation team that, besides the DNA, includes the British Crown Prosecution Service, the British Ministry of Defence Police, and Økokrim, the Norwegian National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime.

This is not the first time the company has come under the authorities' scrutiny. According to earlier reports by Spotmedia and G4Media, the DNA had previously opened a criminal case against Global Defense Logistics on suspicion of repeated bribery; Mihai Daraban has previously denied having anything to do with the case and stressed that his name does not appear in the DNA's statement.

The investigative outlets NewsCenter and PressOne revealed that on July 8, 2026, a private jet took off from Bucharest's Băneasa Airport for Mykonos with thirteen passengers on board, including Constitutional Court judge Cristian Deliorga, Marius Cătălin Croitoru, president of the Constanța Court, former Prime Minister Victor Ponta, former Social Democrat Labor Minister Florin Manole, RMDSZ senator István-Loránt Antal, Mihai Daraban, Ovidiu Ioan Silaghi, secretary general of the chamber and former Minister of Transport, Bogdan Stelian Mîndrescu, CEO of the National Company Bucharest Airports, Gabriel Daraban, and Gruia Stoica, owner of the Grampet Group, who was given a final conviction for influence peddling — and hardly out of place in this distinguished company was “Lóci” Antal, RMDSZ senator and chairman of the Senate's energy committee. According to Observator, the private jet trip could have cost around fifty thousand euros at market price, while according to NewsCenter, Deliorga had also flown to Nice on another private jet on July 3 with his wife and daughter, with Mihai Daraban and his family traveling on the same plane.

Mihai Daraban himself has said that he has had a close friendship with Deliorga for about thirty years, and he called Croitoru an “old friend.” In 2021, Deliorga was among the Constitutional Court judges who rejected the constitutional challenge to the law on the free transfer to the chamber of a 46-hectare plot of state-owned land next to Romexpo. In 2022, the Constitutional Court — with Deliorga among its members — ruled that Daraban could serve a third term at the helm of the chamber, which he has led since 2014, having also headed the Constanța chamber for 24 years. According to a joint investigation by G4Media and Info Sud-Est, Lixandru and Cârstocea — members of the Constanța chamber's leadership — own companies whose cases are being examined precisely by the Constanța Court, headed by Croitoru. According to the two outlets, several of the passengers belong to the Constanța network of connections built up during the era of Radu Mazăre, Nicușor Constantinescu and Sorin Strutinsky, all of whom were later convicted of corruption.

Several investigations are now underway in the case. The Senate's Constitutional Committee is examining Deliorga's trip, and the Judicial Inspectorate has also opened a procedure. USR member of parliament Emanuel Ungureanu has filed a complaint with the DNA and the National Integrity Agency (ANI), requesting that Deliorga's relationship with Mihai Daraban be investigated. The current searches officially concern tax evasion and money laundering linked to the port servicing of NATO warships, not the Mykonos trip — but the fact that a company led by one of the Mykonos flight's passengers, and linked to the family of a Constitutional Court judge's close friend, has come under the scrutiny of the DNA and investigators from three countries raises serious questions about the ties between state-owned companies, the courts and the political elite in Constanța — precisely in the place that serves as one of the key logistical hubs for NATO's presence in the Black Sea.

Ugar