Former Romanian president Traian Basescu is being invested for money laundering. The case involves the 2000 purchase of a 3,700 sqm parcel in Bucharest’s Baneasa district. Basescu reportedly paid $70,000 for the land. Prosecutors argue that Romanian businessman Costel Casuneanu also bought a plot of the same size from the same landowner but paid three times as much as Basescu.
In 2002, Basescu sold that land to Gabriela Blaj, Casuneanu sister-in-law, for $300,000. In 2006, Blaj sold the land to Casuneanu for the same amount she bought it for in 2002. A year later, Casuneanu sold the two parcels for €8m to a real estate developer.
