Raid by the Romanian authorities on a Serbian company, a subsidiary of Gazprom

Romanian authorities have raided the facilities of a Serbian oil company controlled by Russian giant Gazprom. NIS Petrolas part of an investigation into the disclosure of classified information, the prosecutor’s office announced today.

Eight NIS Petrol workers were questioned yesterday, Monday, the Organized Crime and Terrorism Investigations Directorate said in a statement, without specifying whether the workers were taken into custody.

Following these inquiries, four employees are now under investigation. They were released, a prosecutor’s representative told AFP today.

They are alleged to have passed confidential reports on oil fields to their parent company in Belgrade, in the country which is one of the biggest producers of natural gas and oil in the European Union.

Prosecutors also allege “unauthorized transfer of computer data.”

The operation took place in the capital Bucharest and in Timisoara (west).

NIS Petrol has been active in Romania for several years and manages six oil and gas concession fields in the Bihor and Timisoara regions, near the Serbian border.

The company also owns 19 gas stations of Gazprom on Romanian territory.

This former state-owned company was partially privatized in the late 2000s, with the Gazprom group then becoming the majority shareholder. The Serbian state still owns almost 30% of the company’s shares.

The Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic ruled out any responsibility on the part of the Serbian state, amid strong tensions in Europe over energy.

“This is not about the energy war, it is a political war and an espionage war to discipline some (countries) that are considered disobedient,” he said, according to N1 television.

Belgrade has condemned the invasion of Ukraine at the UN, but refuses to align itself with European sanctions against Moscow.

RES-EMP

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