Diesel fuel worth $2 million has allegedly been stolen over four years from a US military base in southeast Romania by members of an organized criminal group, Romanian prosecutors have found.
Romanian prosecutors from the anti organized-crime unit DIICOT supported by the Romanian police have searched several homes of the suspected crime group on Wednesday and brought in several people for questioning.
The office of DIICOT said in a statement that seven suspects have been questioned over the theft of diesel fuel worth $2 million and established that the thefts started in 2017.
The investigation triggered by the complaint filed by the United States has found out that several members of an organized criminal group have stolen liquid fuel, especially diesel oil, from the military base in Mihail Kogalniceanu as well as from other areas in the Constanta region dedicated to military exercises.
It showed that the detained suspects, who have been under surveillance for four years, targeted generators on the base, but gave no details on the suspects’ identity.
US armed forces have been using the military base near the Mihail Kogalniceanu airport, where several hundred US soldiers are stationed, since 1999.
It was a rear base for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 but began to serve as a transit center for US soldiers traveling to and from Afghanistan in 2014, but has also hosted other NATO military aircraft which are policing the airspace over the Black Sea.
As a NATO member since 2004, Romania also hosts US ballistic missile station as well as NATO command centers.
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