* The scandal of the manipulation of the stock of Banca Transilvania, sparked by the prosecutors of the DIICOT after following the trail of several Cypriot firms which were active on the Romanian stock market
* One of these offshore firms - which belongs to the chairman of Banca Transilvania- was involved in the scandal revolving around last year"s elections for the board of directors of SIF Banat-Crişana
* At the time, Horia Ciorcilă and the former vice-president BT, Claudiu Silaghi, tried to get elected on the board of directors of SIF Banat-Crişana.
Starting yesterday, "Banca Transilvania" lies at the center of the largest market manipulation scandal of these past years of the Bucharest Stock Exchange, after the chairman of the bank, Horia Ciorcilă (together with three other bankers) has been indicted by the prosecutors of the Department for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) Cluj for the manipulation of the bank"s stock.
The prosecutors are accusing Horia Ciorcilă that he used privileged information about the intention of "Bank of Cyprus" to acquire a large stake in "Banca Transilvania". The prosecutors allege that on December 7th 2009, Horia Ciorcilă sold, in two transactions, through the offshore company "Dodworth Limited", headquartered in Cyprus (which he owns), a number of 8.92 million shares of the bank (TLV), for 21.4 million lei, to Bank of Cyprus.
Contacted by BURSA, the head of DIICOT Cluj Napoca, Mircea Hrudei, said that the case and the prosecutor"s argument have been submitted with the court of Bucharest, and the investigation has been taken over by the authorities of Bucharest.
Horia Ciorcilă claims that all the charges brought against him by the prosecutors of the DIICOT alleging the manipulation of the stock market are without merit, and he argues that he did nothing that in
