Ion Marcel Vela, former mayor of Caransebeș and Minister of Interior, current senator in the Romanian Parliament, was a very present figure on the Romanian political scene, especially during the state of emergency instituted in Romania during the coronavirus pandemic. That is why the purpose of this investigation is to reveal how a former mayor and former Securitate informant managed to get rich at the expense of the state budget and the citizens and the size of the interest groups around this character.
Ion Marcel Vela was born into a modest family of working peasants from the village of Armeniş, Caraş Severin County. His father worked at the Armeniș City Hall as a cashier, and his mother, Iconia Vela, who appears in many contracts as a screen for Vela Marcel, was a milk collector in the village.
The villagers from Armeniș know Vela Marcel by the nickname Nelu. This Nelu, a mediocre child, finished the "Traian Doda" High School in Caransebeş. His most eloquent characterization "" A little jerk turned into a big jerk ", was made by the former headmaster, who when his former student became mayor in Caransebes asked him for help to print a book, but he refused" diplomatically "Saying that the country is burning and the grandmother is combing her hair!"
After graduating from high school in 1982, Vela Marcel entered the Faculty of Mines in Petroşani, a faculty she dropped out of in her first year. Later, he managed to graduate, in the evening, from the Institute of Sub-Engineers in Resita.
After completing his studies at the institute, he was hired as an insurance agent at ADAS Caransebeş where he dealt with life insurance for workers employed at plants and plants in the region and also concluded insurance for those who had a low-traffic passport. For this reason, security recruited him as an informant, a status he has remained in today, according to the document that circulated in the press in the early 2000s.
Jucă Ilie appears on this document as a liaison officer. Coincidentally, Jucă Ilie was appointed, when Vela became mayor of Caransebeș, director of the Caransebeş Public Guard Corps and later administrator of the POL-COM company, owned by the municipality and in charge of guarding several objectives in the city. .
Moreover, Vela Marcel also holds a revolutionary certificate “although no one has been able to determine whether he actually participated in the revolution and raises the suspicion that this document was obtained illegally. Therefore, we believe that in order to solve this mystery, the state authorities, other than those that covered Vela Marcel, should carry out an investigation.
As early as 1990, Vela joined the PNL and the Civic Alliance, and in 1992 Vela Marcel became deputy mayor of Caransebeș.
In parallel with politics, Vela Marcel was a car dealer with Traian Smultea who currently holds the position of county councilor from the PNL, but once he became deputy mayor he gave up this concern and dealt with more important business, as it stands. good to a deputy mayor. Later, he enrolled at the "Iosif Constantin Dragan" University in Lugoj, and then in the '93 Liberal Party led by businessman Dinu Patriciu.
After the term of office of Deputy Mayor, Vela decided to run for mayor, and his campaign poster states that "he turns 33 on June 2, 1996". This poster is a sign of the inability of Romanian politics to build at least one electoral poster, much less a future for Romanians. Vela lost the election to Ioan Mura, but remained a local councilor. Following the elections, Vela decided to return to the insurance business, to a company detached from the late ADAS, namely ASIROM, where he will remain until 2004.
In 2000, Vela will run again for Caransebeș City Hall, but this time he will be a political loser, but he will remain on the list of local councilors. Meanwhile, due to the resignation of the prefect of Caraş-Severin county, Vela is appointed prefect, a position too big for him.
In 2004 we find Vela a candidate for Caransebeș City Hall against Traian Pleşa, PSD member, businessman and local television owner, and he started his campaign by distributing 2,000 Easter cakes to needy families. Vela, knowing he could not win the election, tried to persuade Ion Stepanescă to support his election campaign. He sponsored the 23,000-euro campaign, although Vela claims that there were, in fact, only 12,000 German marks. With this money, Vela brought to Caransebeș, in order to entertain the voters, the members of the SIMPLU party and the manelist Nicolae Guță.
With the help of the latter, Vela managed to get 8,798 votes, twice as many as his opponent. It is also worth noting that the new mayor brought fanfare music to take the oath.
The election of the mayor gave Marcel Vela the right context to shake hands and collect business cards. He was no longer a poor local councilor, now he was the head of the municipal administration. But detachment from the past was difficult. He still didn't have the courage to say no to a dozen bargains: for example, he didn't hesitate to join the "Lyoness business", a pyramid scheme that promised participants substantial discounts if they attracted others to the game.
The new mayor's ambitions are boundless, he also became a university lecturer at Hyperion University in Bucharest where he taught Administrative Law and Constitutional Law. I think this case is much more serious than that of Becali, who wrote more than he read.
Moreover, in 2006, he became the holder of a course at a branch in Caransebeş of a private university. This branch operated inside the Museum of Ethnography, and these institutions were run by Nicoleta Gumă, who in 2010 was arrested after being caught taking bribes of 1,500 euros each from 33 students whom she had promised to intervene to promote license.
It is clear that Vela was no stranger to this scandal, because he admitted that "In an exam, I was offered 2,100 lei from the students." These bribes were collected from students who wanted a good grade on the bachelor's exam by Nicoleta Gumă. Following this fact, Nicoleta Gumă and professor Gheorghe Stancu were arrested on remand, and six students were sent to court for bribery. Also, Eugen Tacotă, a final year student at the Faculty of Law in Caransebeş who agreed to collect 1,500 euros from 35 of his colleagues, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison with execution. Nicoleta Gumă and professor Gheorghe Stancu, who received the money collected by Tacotă, denied everything. The two were tried in pre-trial detention at the Dolj Court, after obtaining the relocation of the trial from the Caraş-Severin Court, where the two feared that they would not have a fair trial. This scandal eventually led to the abolition of this diploma factory, but Vela remained on the CV with these academic titles which are a disgrace to other members of academia.
From the beginning of his term as mayor of Caransebeș, Vela Marcel worked to increase his well-being until the end of his term, an example being the sale from the patrimony of the local council of a land of 10,000 sqm, at the price of 2 euro / sqm, Ioan Popa, also known as Nelu Tăiețelu, the main shareholder of the Pangram company, the owner of the Monte Banato brand. We specify that the land was sold without an auction, and the clauses stipulated in the minutes of the Commission for the analysis of the offers of potential investors no. 22310 / 11.01006, as well as the clauses stipulated in the sale-purchase contract no. 214 / 17.01.2006 were never observed.
On 11.01.2006, the Commission for the analysis of the offers of potential investors, led by Marcel Vela, discussed the offer of SC Pangram SA to build a shopping center, requesting an area of 10,000 sq m of land and estimating the value of the investment at 200 thousand euros . Following the deliberations, which we assume existed, the Commission headed by Marcel Vela approved the request of SC Pangram SA.
- the contract will contain the clause of the prohibition of the alienation of the land by the buyer, until the moment of paying the price in full;
- the non-commencement of the investment within one year from the date of concluding the contract leads to its legal cancellation within 30 days, after a prior notification, addressed to the investor by the Caransebeş Local Council.
On 17.01.2006 the contract no. 214, between Gruneanţu Constantin Ştefan, representative of Caransebeş City Hall and SC Pangram SA The contract stipulates, very clearly, the following clauses:
Until 17.01.2007, SC Pangram SA did not start any investment, according to the contract. Instead, SC Pangram SA requested a grace period of six months to complete the investment. The six months of grace were approved by the additional act 585 / 26.02.2007, an act that extended the initial contract until 17.07.2007.
After six months of grace, no sign of an investment. In these conditions, Marcel Vela, as mayor, had the obligation to, starting with July 18, 2007, to request the Legal Department to start the contract termination procedures. We do not know what the agreements were between Marcel Vela and Ioan Popa, but he did not start the procedure of restoring the land in the patrimony of the Local Council, although in similar contracts he left the investors without money and without land.
Vela Marcel started an action only after seven years, more precisely, on 06/26/2014, when the civil action no. 2676/208/2014, action by which the plaintiffs the Local Council of Caransebeş Municipality and Caransebeş Municipality, through the mayor (ie through Ion Marcel Vela) requested, at the top, exactly what they had to request starting with July 18, 2007, ie, the termination of the contract, the return of the land at the City Hall and the loss of the amount of 20 thousand euros by SC Pangram SA
I was talking at the beginning of this material about the scale of the interest groups that have been built around Vela, precisely because these individuals who have put their heads down understand relatively quickly that Vela is a frequent politician and a man who lacks integrity. We will talk about the diversity of the socio-professional categories that make up these interest groups in a future material, given the fact that even one of the magistrates who pronounced the decision had a past in which there is talk of investigations and criminal cases.
Will follow