* Interview with Mr. Adrian Cucu, the president of the National Office for Fighting and Preventing Money Laundering (ONPCSB)
Reporter: In 2011, the objective of the Office (ONPCSB) was to implement the Action Plan for the application of the National Strategy for Preventing and Fighting Money Laundering. What can you tell us about the implementation of this strategy?
Adrian Cucu: This strategy, which was approved in 2010, is very important because it got all the institutions involved in preventing and fighting money laundering as a serious phenomenon to sit down together. By respecting their respective competences, all the law enforcement institutions in Romania, which includes us, have come to have a good collaboration.
Since we are talking about money laundering, we would like to say that we serve the function of an integrator of the system, but obviously, the concrete attributions are divided among all the institutions which they are involved in. This year is one of the most important for the plan of action, because, by the end of 2012, we need to become truly integrated.
Reporter: You have sent to the Prosecutors' Office of the High Court of Cassation and Justice 207 notifications where serious clues of money laundering were uncovered. Do you find that the number of notifications was high enough?
Adrian Cucu: Obviously, our activity takes into account the principle of legality. Any good quality information which we receive, which we succeed in expanding on and which we have at a certain time, must be submitted to the Prosecutors' Office. At the same time, the Office has physical limits. We need to make sure that the information about criminal deeds goes to the Prosecutors' Office, and we need to focus our activity in order to succeed in selecting the most relevant information out of all the information which we receive.
