\n<\/p>\n
Sanjeev Gupta\u2019s Liberty Steel is under investigation in Romania for embezzlement and tax evasion, adding to the metals tycoon\u2019s difficulties after the loss of his key British operation.<\/p>\n
Romania\u2019s prosecutor\u2019s office said in a statement last week that they raided seven homes and the registered office of an unnamed company.<\/p>\n
Liberty Steel and its parent organisation, the Gupta Family Group (GFG) Alliance, said the company would \u201cvigorously defend itself against the unfounded allegations directed at the company\u201d.<\/p>\n
Gupta, who is Indian-born and UK-educated, was once known as the \u201csaviour of steel\u201d for his plans to turn around struggling metalworks. However, his empire, previously stretching through the UK, eastern Europe and Australia, has unravelled in the years since the collapse of the lender Greensill Capital in 2021.<\/p>\n
The UK\u2019s Serious Fraud Office has been investigating GFG and Greensill since 2021. GFG and Gupta have strenuously denied any wrongdoing, while administrators of Greensill Capital have previously declined to comment.<\/p>\n
Gupta has lost control of key assets including the steelworks in Whyalla, Australia, as well as the South Yorkshire operations of Liberty Steel UK in August.<\/p>\n
Liberty Steel\u2019s Romanian operation is based in Gala\u021bi, near the Ukrainian border. The prosecutor\u2019s office said it carried out the searches in Gala\u021bi, as well as in and near Bucharest, the Romanian capital.<\/p>\n
Referring to an unnamed company, the Romanian prosecutors said: \u201cPersons with management positions within the company acted to embezzle it through affiliated entities registered in other jurisdictions\u201d, as well as \u201ca series of contracts for the purchase of goods or the provision of services that were not based on real operations, as well as fictitious loan contracts\u201d.<\/p>\n
Transactions under investigation included a \u20ac137m (\u00a3121m) sale of CO2 certificates \u2013 required by EU regulations for heavy polluters such as steelworks \u2013 to the Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom. The money from those sales was transferred \u201cto the accounts of the \u2018parent company\u2019\u201d via a company in Singapore, the prosecutors said. Gazprom was placed under UK and US sanctions related to Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine this year, well after the alleged transactions.<\/p>\n
The company was forced to later replace the certificates for \u20ac154m, leaving it with a heavy loss, the prosecutors said. Funds intended for industrial investments were diverted to cover payments to affiliated legal entities, \u201cwithout an operational justification\u201d, they added.<\/p>\n
A GFG spokesperson said: \u201cLiberty Steel and its management will vigorously defend itself against the unfounded allegations directed at the company.<\/p>\n
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Sign up to Business Today<\/span><\/p>\n Get set for the working day \u2013 we’ll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cGala\u021bi has been the recipient of substantial financial support from the GFG Alliance and is therefore a net beneficiary within the group. All transactions under review were conducted for the benefit of Gala\u021bi and were vetted and approved by independent external lawyers to ensure full compliance with applicable laws.\u201d<\/p>\n GFG also said Gala\u021bi\u2019s external auditors checked the transactions and issued clean audit reports for the periods containing the transactions.<\/p>\n The investigation was part of a series of raids by Romanian authorities targeting businesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sanjeev Gupta\u2019s Liberty Steel is under investigation in Romania for embezzlement and tax evasion, adding to the metals tycoon\u2019s difficulties after the loss of his key British operation. Romania\u2019s prosecutor\u2019s office said in a statement last week that they raided seven homes and the registered office of an unnamed company. Liberty Steel and its parent<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[19186,19188,10210,968,9534,19187,3688],"class_list":{"0":"post-33495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-embezzlement","9":"tag-gupta","10":"tag-investigated","11":"tag-liberty","12":"tag-romania","13":"tag-sanjeev","14":"tag-steel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}