Thursday, October 23 2003: Ovidiu Tender and Vasile Frank Timis are pulling the strings at Rafo Onesti

Paul Cristian Radu paulradu@crji.org

The enormous debt that the Rafo refinery owes to the Romanian State has gotten into the hands of the Vasile Frank Timis-Ovidiu Tender group. They control the refinery through companies established in Great Britain.

Last week we have shown that a group of Romanian citizens, hidden behind the British company Balkan Petroleum, are trying to obstruct the Romanian State from recovering 10,000 billion lei that Corneliu Iacobov’s Rafo refinery owes to the national budget. The strategy they used is pretty simple: half of the refinery’s shares were taken by the British company and, along with those, half of the debts go to the London established company. In a previous investigation we have proved that one of the two directors of Balkan Petroleum(BP) is the Romanian citizen Liana Radu, who lives in Bucharest. Our investigation also proved that Liana Radu is only a frontman. We are able now to present who are the persons behind this shady transaction.

Vasile Frank Timis’ Irish man

The second BP’s director is Cristopher David Grannell, an Irish, aged 41. According to data from the British Company Registrar, Grannell’s name shows up in another British company, Inktrend PLC, an “instant company, established in the same way as the BP. In the Inktrend, Grannell is associated with one Stephen G. Roman, a 50 years old Canadian. Mr. Roman’s name told a lot to us. Roman was, until one year ago, the director of Gabriel Resources, a company that was established by the controversial businessman Vasile Frank Timis. Gabriel Resources is currently trying to exploit Europe’s biggest gold deposit, situated at the Rosia Montana, in Romania. Stephen Roman left the company in the srping of 2002, right after we have published a series of investigations revealing that Roman is involved in the failed privatization of one of the main Romanian state companies.(see the archived article “Timis’ associates involved in the privatization of Oltchim”). When he stepped down from the Gabriel Resources board he told us that he is leaving in order not to endanger the Rosia Montana project because of the Exall-Oltchim scandal.
Another person that was associated with Stephen Roman in Gabriel Resources is Ovidiu Tender, a controversial Romanian businessman, very close to Romanian president, Ion Iliescu. Tender was involved earlier this year in a scandal that involved money laundering and led to the arrest of a high NATO official, Willem Matser, an aide to Lord Robertson.

BP’s director involved in gold mining in Romania

The name of the BP’s director is not only linked indirectly, through the Canadian Stephen Roman, to Frank Timis and Ovidiu Tender. We have discovered that Grannell is the financial director of a company that was also established by Vasile Frank Timis, a Canadian company that is active in Romania. This is the European Goldfields, a company that has the rights to exploit the gold from a extended area of Transylvania. The European Goldfields(EU) properties include the Cretej, Zlatna, Bolcana and Baita-Craciunesti areas. According to documents, in October Vasile Frank Timis held 24 per cent of the EU’s shares.

“I think you should talk to someone else”

We have talked on the phone with David Grannell. The Irish financial expert stated that: “I was designated as a director of Balkan Petroleum and I can’t tell you too much about this company. I think you should talk to someone else.” In reply to our question, if it would be better to talk to Tender and Timis, he said: “Yes, I think it would be better, if you can reach them”.
We have talked to Frank Timis and Ovidiu Tender but, before we have found the David Grannell connection, they both denied having any connection to the BP.

“I haven’t heard about this company. Never heard of Balkan Petroleum. Who are they?”, told us Frank Timis, who, by the time, was in London.
Ovidiu Tender also said he has no link to the Rafo-Balkan Petroleum affair.
However, Frank Timis didn’t answer our e-mails after we have found out about David Grannell’s involvement in his companies. We have asked him to comment his ties to David Grannell and European Goldfields. We have also found out that Grannell was the financial expert who assisted the listing of Regal Petroleum(see the archived “Battle for Petrom” article), another Timis’ company, on the London Alternative Investment Market.

Side Story: A Friendship from Ceausescu’s Times

Ovidiu Tender and the Canadian Stephen G. Roman are connected to an affair that took place in the early 80’s in Romania. According to documents we have obtained, Stephen Roman and his father Stephen B. Roman, were involved, in the late 70s-early 80s in the Romanian-Canadian project that built the only Romanian nuclear plant in Cernavoda, near the Black Sea. During those years, the Romans, father and son, travelled in Romania as the Canadian government representatives and as directors of the Canadian Zemex and Denison Mines corporations. The Cernavoda nuclear plant project was fiercely monitored by all Romanian secret services and by the army.
In an interview, Frank Timis told us that: “ After 1990, when I came back to Romania with Stephen Roman I was amazed how well he kenw Bucharest, He knew it better than me. He’s been here many times”.
It should be said here that, currently, one of the main Ovidiu Tender’s businesses is the Nuclearmontaj company that has a contract with the nuclear plant in Cernavoda. We have also been told that Tender’s father(who has recently been advanced as an army general) met Stepehn Roman’s father during the Cernavoda works. That was the starting point for businesses some 20 years later.