Cigarette maker "Galaxy Tobacco" (formerly called "Societatea Națională Tutunul Românesc SA") has a hearing in court today, after the prosecutors of the National Anticorruption Department (DNA) sued the company in December last year, together with several members of the Ministry of Public Finance for tax evasion, DNA officials said.

Besides "Galaxy Tobacco", the other defendants who are also charged with tax evasion are Vasile Duţă, the director and managing director of the company, and Antonello Celestini, the president and shareholder of the company. Graţiela Iordache, secretary of state at the time in the Ministry of Finance and Livia Bădescu, who care held the position of head of office in the Excise Legislation Department of the Ministry of Public Finance.

The prosecutors of the DNA stated that between November 2007 and April 2009, "Galaxy Tobacco" issued and executed two contracts which concerned the transfer of the rights of ownership of the quantities of 231.7 tons and 871.2 tons of raw tobacco, respectively to the Italian company CTS: "The transfer was made from warehouses which were not authorized as tax warehouses (Zimnicea, Bucharest, Târgu Jiu etc), in violation of the legal provisions concerning bonded warehouses and without any distribution for retail authorization. Issuing and executing the two contracts was intended to conceal the assets and the taxable source and as a result, avoid paying taxes to the state".

In order to avoid the legal duty to pay excises and VAT, for raw or partially processed tobacco, the officials of the company (Duţă Vasile and Celestini Antonello) have successfully devised a set of fraudulent maneuvers, intended to conceal the taxable source represented by the delivery of approximately 1,000 tons of tobacco, to Italian company CTS.

Tax evasion occurred in two stages, according to the prosecution"s charg