Dormi liniştit. FNI veghează pentru tine - or how to earn millions of bucks in post-communist Romania

Yesterday Sorin Ovidiu Vântu, owner of a media trust and employer of 7,000 employees, was arrested for 30 days. He had helped a convicted felon - Nicolae Popa, guilty for cheating 300,000 people - to hide in Indonesia. For ten years, now. And the men of the law gathered all the proofs necessary (just) a few days ago.

The convicted felon was legally in charge of a roguery that costed 300,000 Romanians their life-time savings. The (moral) author of the roguery was Sorin Ovidiu Vântu himself.

Who is Sorin Ovidiu Vântu? Now that is a good question. Born in Moldavia, with economic backgrounds, Sorin Ovidiu Vântu (or SOV, as his nickname was) is a convicted felon for economic fraud. During the Ancient Regime. The Communist Romania, that is. After he went out of jail, he managed somehow to buy all the boys with blue eyes (the Securitate guys) and he managed to develop his (illegal) businesses. He was ready for the political change in 1989, he managed to employ all the national security officers he had bribed before 1989, and quickly became a mogul. That was his recipe for becoming millionaire. He also became, lately, a promoter of Russian interests in Romania and Bassarabia - which qualifies him as a traitor of his nation. And I do not want to say more about this guy. Except this:

Sorin Ovidiu Vântu is not a capitalist. He is the ultimate result of Communism, in its Romanian fashion. Most of the Romanian moguls are like this; like him.

Why do I bother writing posts about this guy? I don't even hate him, I just pity him anyway. Well, a good reason would be that he ruined my mother's work and ultimately her motivation to live and to fight for a better life, for her and her family. A lot of irresponsible Romanians refer to those who placed their economies, during the late '90s, in the FNI - Fondul Naţional de Investiţii - as greedy persons who were not willing to work, just to wait for the money to fall out from the sky. Perhaps their economies have fallen as well from the sky, instead of hard work, isn't it?

My mother was working, at the time, from 12 up to 16 hours a day, she was alone, she knew the value of money, and her conviction was that a fund guaranteed and agreed upon by the state - like FNI was - could be no forgery. I guess she believed the Romanian state was a state of law, not a state of the former security guys. Her belief costed her - and us, her children - tens of thousands of dollars. With the fall of the FNI back in 2000 I got the true image, the hideous image, of the Romanian post-communist state. And the true face of most of the Romanians.

After 2000, I never bought anything produced by any of the companies belonging to SOV. Not even a newspaper. I never watched his televisions, or bought his gasoline. I've put a permanent boycott on this guy. I cannot imagine I'm the only one doing this. But I know many have chosen to close their eyes...

As a conclusion, I truly hope SOV and his siblings - he is not the only one, actually there are many of them, only they are smaller than him - shall rot in jail. There's actually a rather small chance for that, if we take a look at the Romanian justice of 2010. But, nevertheless, that is the condition for my country to get out of the Dark Ages it crosses now.

PS. The Romanian media was, again, disgusting when reflecting this case. And far too partisan, in the both ways.

PPS. You know, my friends, what bothered me most about the FNI crush in 2000? The fact that, back in May 2000, even the Romanian section of the BBC preferred to accuse the victims - 300,000 "greedy" Romanians, or 300,000 Romanian "players" (jucători la FNI - I'll never forget that expression) - instead of pointing the finger to the agent and moral author of the forgery, SOV himself. BBC permanently lost me as a client because of that.

With love,