Romanian businessman Sorin Ovidiu Vantu, best known now for his ownership of a media group including Realitatea TV news channel, signed up as an informer for the Ceausescu-era secret police Securitate in 1983, his file - under the conspirative name of Nus - appearing closed in 1988, as it results from a series of documents of what appears to be his personal file. A former Securitate officer confirms Vantu had been recruited while in prison where he was serving time for embezzlement and included after his release in the network of an officer in Roman, the city where SOV lived before 1989.
Read the full report by journalists Dan Tapalaga (HotNews.ro) and Catalin Prisacariu (Kamikaze) in Romanian here
HotNews.ro and the Kamikaze magazine investigated the secret past of the man who they say changed the fate of the presidential elections in 2009. From documents and witness accounts results SOV was a felon arrested for embezzlement in 1982, recruited by Securitate as an informer in 1983 and an illegal trader after release in 1985 until the revolution. After the Revolution, he stood in public attention as associated with former Securitate officers involved in complex businesses.
Contacted twice, at the beginning and the end of the investigation, Sorin Ovidiu Vantu said he retained his right to have a reaction after the report is published.
A series of documents from his Securitate personal file shows that Sorin Ovidiu Vantu was recruited by the Securitate at the age of 28, in April 1983, while serving a five-year sentence for embezzlement at the Bacau penitentiary. The IVth Counter-information Direction opened Personal File no.8046. The Direction was among others in charge with recruiting informers from among detainees.
In an undated document written by Vantu, he said he would provide information as written notes signed with
