Stangaciu Cornel Constantin, Sentenced to 12 Years for Bank Fraud, Speaks to “Hetq”

In August of last year, the RoA National Security Service rounded up a known international criminal gang that had defrauded a number of bank cash machines in Armenia out of more than 80 million AMD by using bogus ATM cards.

The last case that went to court was that of Rumanian citizen Stangaciu Cornel Constantin, who was charged with being the ringleader of the group. He was sentenced on October 12, at the Kentron and Nork-Marash District Court, to twelve years and the seizure of property not to exceed 64,142,000 AMD. The judge also decided to appropriate 25,457,000 of this as compensation to the following banks – HSBC Armenia, ArtsakhBank, AgbaCredit Agricole, and VTB.

What follows is an exclusive interview that “Hetq” conducted with Stangaciu Cornel Constantin now serving time at Vardashen Penitentiary.

You have filed for an appeal. On what basis?

I will never pay that amount back because I never stole it in the first place. If I was guilty, perhaps I might request that they take, say, my liver instead. But why should I sell of one of my bodily organs if I have no connection with the stolen money? Then too, I don’t understand how these banks came to be recognized as the aggrieved party. The cash was withdrawn using fake cards for the British Barclays Bank and thus it was this bank that was defrauded, not the Armenian banks. This is a very dirty business. I have no idea what will happen after this interview hits the papers. Maybe, they will want to sentence me to 15-20 years. In the end, this case will go to the European Court. I can’t say who will pay for the mistakes of the investigators and examiners.

They indicted me based on the testimony of Oliver Raduca and Daniel Fereru. National Security Service Senior Examiner Artyom Grigoryan was obliged to set up a face-to face meeting with them, but didn’t. I have asked for such a meeting several times and even had the Rumanian Embassy act as an intermediary to make the request that I be interrogated. But I have never been questioned. They have even barred me from using a telephone for nine months. My wife would write to me but I’d only receive the letters two or three months later.

You state that the pre-trial examination unit came up with nothing against you. But you are shown on the cash machine videotaped recordings as taking part in the fraud. How it that you wound up in the company of those individuals who had traveled to Armenia with some 160 bogus bank cards? Didn’t you have any idea about what they were involved in?

Ten years ago I had a fight with a guy called Marius Lupu. I got struck from behind on a London street and it left a huge scar on my face. Everyone said that Lupu shouldn’t have damaged my face like that. The plastic surgery cost $20,000 and Lupu was supposed to pay for it.

The last time I saw Lupu, he told me there were people he knew in Armenia that would give me the money. Lupu was always on the move. At the time, he said he was off for Morocco, where he was living. So I agreed to come to Armenia since I couldn’t be sure when I’d see Lupu again.

He never told me who in particular would pay me the money in Armenia. He only said that Blaga would accompany me and help me to arrange a meeting with these guys. We landed in Armenia on August 18, 2008, and shared a room together. It was much cheaper this way. I had 3,500 British pounds available on my bank card and I periodically withdrew money to pay for the hotel room and the car rental. I had no clue as to what Blaga was up to here. It wasn’t my business to know. Nothing was amiss in the hotel room and I didn’t ask questions. Even if he was involved in theft, I had come to get my money and nothing more.

I met Oliver at the hotel. He had come to ask me where he could rent a car. We decided to go to Sevan since people had told us it was a great place to kick back and have a good time. On the ride back, we stopped off at a store for some water and juice. It was there that I first found out what they were up to. Blaga said that he had forgotten three cards in his pocket and if he returned them to Lupu, they would think that he had stolen them. He gave me and Oliver one card apiece with which to withdraw money. I agreed and withdrew 150,000 AMD; turning it over to Blaga.

On August 23, or maybe it was the following day, Marius Lupu arrived in Armenia. He had given me 3 million AMD for the facial surgery, in the course of one or two days. On August 26, Blaga moved to another hotel. I found six fake bank cards in my room and placed them in my wallet. You see, I meant to return them. I didn’t want them lying about the room. I had a ticket for a flight back to London the next day, but I spent the night with a woman and woke up too late to catch the plane.

I rang Lupu to get some money for a new ticket since I had spent all my money on girls and stuff and had bought a new “Verdu” phone for myself. Oliver told me that Lupu had gone to Goris while in fact he and Blaga had left Armenia that very day. He tricked me in order to weasel out of paying me what he owed.

I went to Goris. The taxi driver demanded 600,000 AMD. I was forced to use the fake cards in my wallet to withdraw the money. But it was only 300,000 AMD. In total, including the Sevan cash, I only withdrew 450,000 AMD using the fake cards.

During his testimony, Daniel Fereru stated that law enforcement had also arrested Blaga but later released him. Do you know anything about this?

This information comes from the trial sessions. Oliver and Fereru know that Blaga was arrested, given that on August 27, the day of their arrest, Blaga was with them at the cash machine. There is proof to this effect. As to why he was later released, who can say? This is Armenia; right?

You state that you were on a good footing with Oliver, that you knew him for ten years before all of this. So what do you think is the reason that he, as you claim, made up these lies against you?

But, let’s remember, that at the last trial session both Oliver and Fereru withdrew their incriminatory pre-trial testimony against me. Fereru even recounted how Oliver had taught him to say those things against me. Oliver had all the time in the world to do such a thing since they kept the two of them in the same cell for four months.

Fereru came to Armenia with the assistance of Oliver, whose mother bought him a ticket. Even after all this, the investigators still believe that Fereru was my guy and that he was working for me.

Oliver has been tried twice before, on similar charges of using bogus bank cards to steal money. His father, mother and wife were involved in the same activity back in Great Britain. Blaga is also a member of Oliver’s gang. I told Investigator Artyom Grigoryan that on August 27 Oliver converted some of the stolen cash into 10,000 Euros. I gave them the exact location and with whom the exchange took place, but they still refused to hit Oliver with any serious charges.

Oliver needed someone on which to place the burden of the blame and I was that person. He was only sentenced to two years and was released after serving one and a half years. (Marian Oliver Raduca was released from the Vardashen Penitentiary on October 28, 2009). Meanwhile, I was sentenced to twelve years and not by the judge but by the investigator.

During the pre-trial examination, Investigator Artyom Grigoryan once told me, “I’m going to see to it that you get 12 years.” So, I ask you, who has sentenced me?

So why do you think that law-enforcement believed Oliver and charged you, and not him, as being the ring leader of the group?

On August 27, I and Oliver had booked a room at the Yerevan Hotel. When the investigators searched the room they found a large sum of cash in the safe. Oliver told them that the cash belonged to me, Constantin. But there is something quite fishy here.

When we booked the hotel room Oliver used his passport. He was the one who got the code to the safe. He was the one who placed the cash inside. My passport was in my luggage along with 500 British pounds. The cops not only stole the money but my clothes as well.

Later on, the police used my passport info to make it look like the room had been booked in my name and consequently, that the money in the safe belonged to me. But in reality, I didn’t even know how much money was there. The official police record states that 25,200 Euros and some 4 million AMD were seized from the hotel room safe. However, before being released from prison, Oliver confided in me that the safe contained a much larger amount of cash – 37,000 Euros and 12 million AMD. No wonder that I was never interrogated during the pre-trial examination. They knew that I would spill the beans about the money and that everything would be turned upside down. Law enforcement struck a deal with Oliver; they helped him out and he said nothing regarding the true amount of cash in the safe.

According to the Rumanian Interpol Office, you and your brother organized a criminal gang that you yourself headed, and that in fact it was you who first carried out this illegal activity in Armenia and that the others, Oliver, Fereru and Blaga, came to Armenia at your behest. What do you have to say regarding this?

How could I have been the first to arrive in Armenia when the others you mention got here before me? In point of fact, criminal gangs have quite a lot of members. Are they saying that my brother and I became a gang all by ourselves?

I really think that the Interpol information you refer to is fabricated. I don’t say that it’s a bunch of lies. All I’m saying is that even if my brother is a felon, who steals money, that doesn’t mean that he’s another Al Capone…