The largest construction company with the largest turnover in Romania, RichRBT (Road Bridges and Tunnels), with a EUR 700 million turnover and 1,251 employees declared in 2023, has its headquarters in a public toilet in downtown Bucharest, investigative reporters at Recorder revealed. Despite being ranked by the tax authorities among the largest companies in the country, it is reportedly a ghost company serving as an interface for fraudsters trading construction materials and never paying the suppliers but recovering the VAT from the state, according to the media investigation.
Asked some eight months earlier about this situation, the ANAF head, newly appointed at that time, mentioned something about “it’s not my business, I am new here” and “we are on top of it.”
It is not clear whether the case reflects ANAF’s lack of capacity or the corruption that made it possible for the fraudsters to take over a company with fake documents – but the report points to a combination of the two.
For instance, RichRBT filed the financial statements for the past six years in 2024, claiming annual turnovers of hundreds of millions of euros, and ANAF has initiated an inspection, but certified the company for VAT refund instead. Previously, the current owners took over the company from the founder (an entrepreneur operating a winery in his garage) with fake documents. The company’s founder reported this fraud to ANAF in vain.
In the meantime, ANAF strives to boost its revenues by cracking down on the small entrepreneurs and freelancers who failed to file the multitude of statements in time.
iulian@romania-insider.com
(Photo source: Andrey Popov/Dreamstime.com)