Romanian politician Calin Georgescu, whose first-round victory in the 2024 presidential election was later annulled, has been detained over allegations linking him to a €1 million fraud scheme.
Georgescu stunned Romania’s political establishment when he topped the opening round of the 2024 presidential contest while campaigning on an anti-NATO platform. His victory was subsequently controversially overturned amid allegations concerning an alleged online influence campaign. He was later barred from contesting the rerun, even after reports emerged that the disputed digital campaign had been financed by a political party opposed to him.
Romania’s Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) announced on Monday that a suspect had been detained and five properties searched as part of its investigation. Romanian media identified Georgescu as the person at the centre of the operation.
His political ally George Simion, leader of the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), condemned the detention and warned that others could face similar treatment.
“Any of us can be next. Stop the abuse!” Simion wrote on Facebook, adding: “Romania is a dictatorship!!!!”
The allegations concern an alleged fraud dating to 2021 and were first reported by Digi24 in December 2024. According to that report, the alleged victim had lodged a criminal complaint earlier that year.
News of the investigation initially emerged only days before Romania’s Constitutional Court cancelled the presidential election, a decision that triggered large public demonstrations.
The fraud case is not the only legal proceeding involving Georgescu. Authorities have previously accused him of campaign-finance offences and involvement in a plot against Romania’s constitutional order. Those proceedings ultimately prevented him from standing in the presidential election rerun held in 2025.
Georgescu has rejected wrongdoing and condemned the cases against him as politically motivated persecution.
The controversy surrounding Romania’s cancelled election also attracted criticism from the administration of US President Donald Trump, which pointed to the episode while accusing European institutions of presiding over declining democratic standards.
EU officials, meanwhile, maintained that Romanian authorities were entitled to respond to suspected foreign interference. Brussels has increasingly relied on measures established under the Digital Services Act to address alleged online manipulation surrounding elections, with similar mechanisms deployed during electoral contests elsewhere in Europe, including Moldova.
Former Bucharest mayor Nicusor Dan, a French-educated pro-EU politician, eventually became president following the upheaval surrounding the cancelled election.
Romania’s political instability has nevertheless continued. Dan recently nominated MEP Siegfried Muresan, a vice-chair of the European People’s Party Group and former German Bundestag adviser, to try to establish a new government despite the absence of a clear parliamentary majority.
The nomination represents the third attempt to assemble a government since a no-confidence vote in May plunged Romania into another political crisis, raising the prospect that voters could once again be sent to the polls for an early parliamentary election.
🇷🇴 Georgescu has been taken in by DIICOT over an alleged €1.1M fraud scheme and he is in hearings now…
No conviction and the allegations still have to be proven in court. No evidence has been presented since 2024…
Fmr. presidential candidate George Simion is standing with…
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) September 21, 2026
A genuine EU democratic election…..looks like the veneer is peeling off, eh miss Kallas?