The godfather of illegal real estate businesses in Timisoara, Ionelas Carpaci and the richest “silk gipsy” in town, Nicolae Mihai have started to speak out about each other’s illegal activities. Mihai says that Ionelas had kidnapped his mother for a 4 million euros property and placed funeral flower arrangements on his fence.

The man who illegally managed to take over lands that were confiscated by the communists and should have been reconvened to their rightful owners has started a war against Nicolae Mihai.

Carpaci says that Mihai is the leader of the gypsy mafia in Timisoara, while Mihai says that Carpaci is laundering tens of millions of euros through real estate businesses. The money are supposedly coming from the frauds in Germany and the illegal lending in Romania.

Mihai’s public outcry is a reaction to the fact that he had addressed a formal complaint against Ionelas. Mihai is accusing Ionelas of forgery in a legal note that was later used to sell certain lands that belonged to Mihai Nicolae’s mother.

The war between the most powerful criminal figures in Timisoara opens our eyes to a dangerous world, of fabulous figures that are ignored by the fiscal authorities.

The two mob leaders are now turning in on each other.

They own the central area of Timisoara

“Ionelas and his father in law, Visinel Stancu are well known in Timisoara as the leaders of two fierced gypsy clans that have managed to take over almost the entire central area of the city. Their methods consist of trials which retrocede properties to fake inheritors by using legal mandates which are fabricated in France and Germany.

The fake mandates have won many trials for the two mob clans. Another method is buying an apartment in a building and moving in some poor gipsy families who terrorize their neighbors, who eventually sell out their properties for cheap. The most violent figure of the Carpaci clan is Vladimir Dulcea, Ionelas’s cousin. The source of the money that finance such actions is in Frankfurt”, according to sources from within Organized Crime Investigation agencies.

The fiscal authorities

The General Direction of Public Finance of Timis county officials say that verifying the mob money is out of their legal reach. “The fiscal system is declarative in Romania. We only have the right to check out tax money coming from legal activities that take place in Romania.

If certain incomes are from Germany, we are powerless. And if we’re talking about illegal income sources, it’s someone else’s job to investigate them” said an official of the Public Finance Department, who wished to remain anonymous.

“We asked the fiscal authorities to verify these persons. Their answer was that the suspects have no incomes in Romania and that there are no traces of bank operations from other countries”, Ovidiu Draganescu, the Timis prefect said.

Investigation – The French are searching the gipsy palaces

The institution that has the greatest prerogatives in this case is the Department of Organized Crime and Terrorist Activities (DIICOT). Its bureau in Timisoara is lead by prosecutor Carmen Martinov, who has questioned Ionelas seven years ago and decided that the suspect cannot be charged with anything illegal.

Last fall, a French judicial team went to Timisoara for a series of investigations. With the help of Territorial DIICOT, the French policemen have searched the gipsy palaces in Timisoara.

Their owners are inquired in France for luxury car traffic and credit card frauds. The palaces have been seized by the french authorities.