With “Saint Gabriela the Brave” in charge of equal opportunities, social assistance funding becomes thriving business for her cronies & Cristina's internment camps

On the morning on 5 July 2018, a man of around 60 comes through the gate of the house located
at 96 Eroilor Boulevard in Voluntari and is registered as a beneficiary of the center for
vulnerable persons that operates here.
On his first night at the center, the man goes out onto the second floor balcony and throws
himself onto the hard pavement in the courtyard below.
He dies instantly.
“I wasn't on duty that night, it was my other co-worker. From what she said, he first went up
to the first floor, looked down and said, 'No, it's too close!', then he went up to the second floor,
bent over the railing and said, 'Well, this might do it…'”, one of the center's employees at that
time recounts with a deep sigh. Let's call her Gina*.
“It happened at night, when my co-worker was not around… you know, she has a little room
where she retreats sometimes and it was probably during that time. He was admitted in the
morning, and that night he threw himself off the balcony,” Gina says.
She doesn't know why the man did what he did. “Maybe he was depressed or may be he was
upset that he'd been brought there,” adds Gina, a simple woman nearing retirement age,
without much formal education.

In 2012, under pressure from the European Union, Romania was forced to relocate people with physical and mental disabilities from its infamous gigantic institutions that made world news in the early years after the Revolution. In a gradual process that began at that time and is still ongoing, vulnerable people have been placed in sheltered housing or smaller residential centers, within communities.

A brand new type of business thus emerged and thrived: trading in the seriously ill and vulnerable. All funded by the government, still obliged to pay good money for their care.

Out of the social assistance budget, which is one of the bigger chunks of Romania's state budget, the government hands out large amounts for the housing, feeding and care of each person with disabilities, whether they are living with family or in a state-run or private care center.

The more serious the diagnosis, the more the government pays for that person's care. For the most severe of cases, that amount nears 1,500 euros a month.

The communist-era care institutions have been replaced by social service providers: NGOs or companies receive these people along with receive money from the government to house, feed and provide them with adequate treatment and care to improve their condition or at least slow their decline. But when that money lines the pockets of business owners instead of helping the vulnerable, the social service system becomes a cash cow.

Things come full-circle easily: the heads of institutions providing these care centers with clients and aid money are also supposed to be the first to check and ensure the conditions in these centers are adequate. However, they don't. In this quid pro quo, money changes hands while the people – vulnerable, some of whom lack civil rights and have no family – wither and die. Others take their place. And the cycle repeats itself.

On 24 November 2020, in a studio flat in Voluntari, an NGO with a made-up saint's name was founded: the Saint Gabriel the Brave Association.

One of the first members of the organization is Ligia Gheorghe (formerly Enache), an old friend of Gabriela Firea; she was a producer on Firea's TV shows and later on served as her adviser while Firea was mayor, then senator, and most recently minister of equal opportunities.

At the end of September, Firea had just lost her bid for reelection as mayor of capital city Bucharest and was elected senator in early December. Her longtime adviser Ligia Gheorghe was practically between jobs at the time, even though according to her CV, between November 2020 and July 2021, she was employed by Metropola TV, the television station of the Voluntari city hall, run by longtime mayor Florentin Pandele, Firea's husband.

Besides Ligia Gheorghe, the association also includes Ecaterina Adriana Voicu, appointed by mayor Firea in 2017 as head of the Bucharest Youth Center, and her life partner, Ştefan Godei, former boss of the Social Democratic Party's youth organization in Ilfov county and a bodyguard of sorts to Gabriela Firea.

The aim of the association chaired by Godei is, according to its by-laws, to "improve the quality of life" and "fight against the extinction of life".

In theory, of course, because its made-up patron saint, Gabriel the Brave, floats down from the heavens and starts making money for the associates: the NGO sets up two centers and receives into care some of the most vulnerable adults, people with severe mental and physical disabilities. It receives a lot of public money each month from the General Directorates of Social Assistance and Child Protection (DGASPC) Ilfov and Bucharest Sector 3.

Namely from state authorities in Ilfov, the fiefdom of the Firea-Pandele couple, and those subordinated to the couple's godson, Bucharest Sector 3 mayor Robert Negoiță.

People waste away and die, but the money keeps pouring in. When trouble arises, no state employee seems to take notice.

We took notice.

He was Viși

It's Thursday, 11 November 2021, and the loud wail of an ambulance siren rips through the otherwise quiet Ștefan cel Mare street in Pipera, Voluntari.

It makes a sudden stop outside the house at number 38. There is no sign on the front gate and one might easily dismiss it as just another huge villa in the 'posh' neighborhood on the outskirts of Bucharest.

Paramedics take out the stretcher and rush into the yard, then into the house. A few minutes later they come back out and the stretcher, bearing a young man who lies motionless, is loaded into the ambulance. The young man is Gabriel Gheorghe, nicknamed "Viși"; as a boy he spent his whole life in Bucharest orphanages and later, as an adult with severe mental disabilities, went from one state center to another.

Viși had just had a seizure. He had fallen on his back and had hit his head badly. The ambulance took him to the Floreasca hospital, but there was nothing anyone could do for him.

He died a few hours later. He was 35 years old.

“Viși died? Oh no, when did he die? He used to hop around all day long, when he was happy he would go like this... ,” Lili Covaci, a psychologist and behavioral therapist who worked with Viși in the past, recalls him with a hint of sadness.

It's 7 September 2022, and Lili Covaci is part of the Legal Resources Center (CRJ) team on an unannounced monitoring visit to the St Gabriel the Brave center, located at 38 Stefan cel Mare Street in Pipera.

Viși is one of the young people Lili took care of many years ago, when she worked at the former "Marin Pazon" Neuropsychomotor Recovery Center in Sector 3, which has since closed. Most of them are today beneficiaries of the services of the St Gabriel the Brave center in Pipera.

The other "children", as Lili calls them, recognize her, even though many years have passed since they last saw each other. Somewhat hard to believe, for people with serious medical issues. To help them remember her, Lili Covaci says the magic word: "McDonald's".

"I used to bring them McDonald's regularly, especially when they were good and cooperative," the psychologist tells Media Investigation Center and Buletin de București reporters after visiting the center in Pipera.

A beautiful prison

Unfortunately, Lili Covaci and her colleagues who come to monitor the center in Pipera quickly understand that, beyond the relative cleanliness of the place, the condition of these people has not improved at all, a tell-tale sign that they are not receiving the services for which the government pays.

"This looks like a nice prison, what you have here. It is clean, admittedly, but where are the social services?" Georgiana Pascu, program manager at the CRJ, asked the two employees – a caregiver and a nurse – who were tending to nearly 30 people on the day CRJ went to inspect the center.

The formal findings of the CRJ monitoring visit at the St Gabriel the Brave center in September 2022, however, look much worse in detail.

And the conclusions of CRJ activists are reinforced by Romanian state officials, namely a team from the National Authority for the Protection of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (ANPDPD), which also visited and monitored the center just a few days before the activists.

According to the two monitoring reports (by CRJ and ANPDPD) obtained by Media Investigation Center and Buletin de București reporters, the center is in fact a mansion with an upstairs and an attic and houses 27 people with serious health problems. For their care, DGASPC Sector 3 pays more than 30,000 euros a month. The money goes to the association with the made-up saint's name, which in turn pays a monthly rent of 3,500 euros for the hundreds of square meters of house, plus a sizeable courtyard.

And that's pretty much all there is to this St Gabriel the Brave Care and Assistance Center. The rest exists only on paper.

Out of the more than 30,000 euros that go into the pockets of Gabriela Firea's cronies every month from the government, only 4,000 lei, i.e. less than 1,000 euros, is spent on medical, psychiatric and psychological services, as shown by documents obtained by the Media Investigation Center and Buletin de București reporters. This means that just 2.7% of the total amount received covers a few essential services, whereas all 27 beneficiaries at this center are people with severe physical and mental disabilities and require permanent medical supervision.

This is evident in the condition of the beneficiaries, as well as from the documents.

The ANPDPD inspection took place in the last week of August 2022 and the last entries in the GP's observation sheets date from back in spring. After that, beneficiaries had only been examined in emergency situations when an ambulance had been called.

One such episode of self-harm by a beneficiary occurred and was noted by the ANPDPD team during the inspection. In the absence of specialists to intervene immediately, the center employees called the emergency service number 112, and an ambulance and police immediately responded.

Another example recounted by the ANPDPD in its report: the case of a beneficiary who, in August, "had multiple episodes of agitation, screamed, hit her head on the pavement, pulled out her hair and stripped off her clothes". In this case "an attempt was made to calm her down", after which "the emergency service was called".

Another event, on March 9, was also resolved with "emergency specialized help", as a beneficiary was aggressive with his roommate, "pushed him off the bed, they hit each other over old wounds, they hurt each other".

"Calling an ambulance is an interesting trick, but it's abusive. The ambulance comes for free when it's called, and the employees basically call the ambulance for just about anything. For instance, we have seen cases where they called an ambulance because one beneficiary had a rash. It should be illegal to use free ambulance services to make up for the work of doctors you actually choose not to pay," Georgiana Pascu, leader of the CRJ's monitoring team, tells reporters.

"Since the GP had not offered consultations to the beneficiaries in the center since spring, they received medical assistance only through the emergency medical service," ANPDPD representatives also state unequivocally in the cited report.

A slow and certain death

The lack of basic healthcare is noticeable even on paper.

ANPDPD inspectors note the case of a 69-year-old beneficiary who had lung cancer surgery in 2019 and who, since being placed in the care of the center, had never been examined and evaluated, although both the oncologist and the GP had obviously recommended regular check-ups and tests.

That same beneficiary's file shows an entry from March 2022, where the center's employees wrote that he refused treatment: Symbicort (inhaler). In another, later note, it is stated that the beneficiary "has no treatment". Asked at the ANPDPD inspection why he had refused the treatment, the man replied that he had no money to buy it.

One Symbicort Turbuhaler inhaler, which according to the leaflet should be enough for at least one month for an adult, costs 70 lei. For the care of this patient, the center receives 5,571 lei a month from the government, through DGASPC Sector 3.

The same beneficiary suffers, according to medical records, from diabetes. The employees on duty at the time of the ANPDPD inspection had prepared tea and cream biscuits for everyone at breakfast. Including him, as neither the caregivers nor the nurse knew, according to the report, that the man required a special diet.

Doctors: anti-vaxxers, absent or none at all

The head of the center, Ştefan Godei, told ANPDPD inspectors that the general practice office the center had contracted, GIMED SRL, had unilaterally terminated the medical services contract "several months ago". He explained this was the reason why the center's beneficiaries had not been seen by any doctor for months. He added the center was “currently negotiating" with another potential provider. According to a contract obtained by reporters, GIMED SRL was receiving 1,000 lei a month for the care of the center's 27 beneficiaries.

The physiotherapist – also essential for people with physical disabilities – hasn't shown up for work in months either, according to Godei, who claims that "his employment contract is to be terminated".

The psychologist stopped coming in as well. According to the ANPDPD report, "some of the beneficiaries said the psychologist had offered them counseling and psychological support a few weeks ago, on Saturdays, but that he had stopped coming." At the time of the monitoring visit, Godei told ANPDPD inspectors, the center's psychologist was on vacation.

The psychology practice contracted by the St Gabriel the Brave Association until November 2022 belongs to Antoaneta Camelia Preda. The amount that her practice received monthly was 1,500 lei.

Preda had links with Sector 3, just like the beneficiaries living in the house in Voluntari: until the end of October 2021, she was the head of the "Pistruiatul" Service Complex administered by DGASPC Sector 3. She had been working for DGASPC Sector 3 since 2010, when she was head of service at the Service Complex for Delinquent Children.

The psychiatrist, on the other hand, visits the center twice a month and also receives 1,500 lei. According to the ANPDPD, the center's nurse liaises with the psychiatrist, who advises over the phone.

The psychiatrist in question is Matei Iorgu Dragos. According to the website of Imuno Medica, the clinic where he is employed, he has been practicing medicine for almost ten years. "His medical and scientific training is complemented by his spiritual and theological training, as he is also a graduate of the "Justinian the Patriarch" Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Bucharest," the website reads.

Imuno Medica is owned by businessman George Becali, and from 2017 to 2018, psychiatrist Matei was the company's administrator. Since 2019, Becali's clinic has been brought to the public's attention after Libertatea wrote about the scientifically unproven treatments it offers.

For example, in 2019 one of the cures available at Imuno Medica was mistletoe therapy for cancer patients. "Whole-body hyperthermia is a high fever fever induced throughout the body in the hope of destroying cancer cells. Nowhere in the world do doctors treat cancer this way because they have no evidence that this therapy works," Libertatea reported at the time.

Moreover, during the pandemic, the team at Libertatea found that Imuno Medica had posted on its website a treatment and/or prevention plan for COVID-19 promoting controversial drugs such as Ivermectin, Arbidol and Plaquenil, as well as gargling with brandy. This plan was created by theologian Virgiliu Gheorghe, co-owner of the clinic, a promoter of pseudo-medicine and a vocal anti-vaxxer.

The opinions of the psychiatrist who treats the beneficiaries in Voluntari do not differ considerably from those of his bosses at Imuno Medica. He is one of the doctors who signed the rejection of the draft Vaccination Law arguing that "there is no consensus in medicine on the safety and efficacy of vaccines".

Other employees: few and untrained

Aside from the services "outsourced" rather on paper only, the center does not actually have nearly enough employees.

In addition to the fact that doctors rarely visit the St Gabriel the Brave center, the staff that should be taking care of the 27 beneficiaries suffering from serious mental problems is insufficient.

The St Gabriel the Brave center should operate with a total of 27 employees, according to its own organizational rule-book, which must have weighed quite a bit in securing its profitable contract from DGASPC Sector 3.

In reality, there are only a few employees: four plus the owner. Just four people to care for the 27 beneficiaries with serious special needs: two caregivers, a social worker and a nurse. Plus one of the beneficiaries, whose medical condition is much better the rest, who volunteers as a caregiver in exchange for housing and meals from St Gabriel the Brave.

Only two caregivers, although on paper there are 13. Only one nurse, where there should be four.

What's worse, the existing staff lacks professional qualifications. The ANPDPD states that "no documents have been identified to attest to the employees' participation in training courses/ education". In the contract with DGASPC S3, the association had undertaken to train its staff and provide the required human resources. Needless to say, it did not.

All this is ultimately to the direct detriment of beneficiaries, who practically have no specialized help to improve their condition.

"The people in care at the time of the visit were not receiving specific aid for the exercise/ preservation of abilities. Although in an entry called "the functional monitoring/enabling of beneficiaries" the center claims to have offered activities such as painting, pottery, drawing, and gardening, the beneficiaries we were able to interview said no such activities were available. Social/recreational activities (watching TV, spending time outdoors in the yard) were the only activities available at the time of the visit," ANPDPD inspectors write.

The austere living conditions of beneficiaries housed at the St Gabriel the Brave center were also noted by the CRJ monitors. Most of the residents spend their time either watching TV or, weather permitting, in the dilapidated backyard.

Out in the yard, the sole existing furniture is “an indoor two-seater sofa in an advanced state of disrepair".

The outdoor space that beneficiaries should enjoy is so unkempt, it's more of a safety hazard than a place for them to relax. According to the ANPDPD, certain elements in the center's courtyard, such as electrical wires and overgrown rose bushes covering the walkway, "pose a heightened risk of injury".

Things don't fare much better indoors. Some of the beneficiaries sleep in the living room, on mattresses that they themselves have carried and laid on the floor.

"Beneficiaries sleep grouped together because of the lack of supervisory and care+giving staff," notes the same report. This “lack of staff”, which obviously translates into lack of care for the people institutionalized here, punctuates the monitoring report like a refrain.

One other basic facility those who sleep downstairs in the living room lack is bathrooms. While there are two toilets on the ground floor, both are kept locked and for the use of staff only.

Center employees say eight of the beneficiaries, women and men with severe mental illnesses, sleep in the basement.

According to the CRJ, the basement windows are very narrow and the beneficiaries living there don't get enough natural light or fresh air. And they are among the “lucky” ones. Others have no windows at all, no matter how narrow.

"Three of the residents housed in the basement were living in the hallway and all they had was their bed; they had no pillows, the bed linens were filthy, they had no nightstand or any other type of closet, no personal belongings," CRJ notes.

What's really going on in the basement? One of the women "tearfully recounted that she had been placed in solitary confinement down in the basement and in the dark for an extended period of time." She begged the ANPDPD inspectors not to repeat what she had told them to the center's bosses, fearing she would be locked up in the dark again the next time she happens to “misbehave”.

"As a result of this incident, [the woman] has panic attacks and nightmares," the ANPDPD inspectors write.

Several women at the center have confirmed the woman's story, the report says, but they all fear repercussions and are reluctant to complain to the management. Even if they wanted to make a formal complaint, residents told CRJ activists that they don't have access to paper and writing instruments to log in notifications or complaints. And besides, those complaints would end up with the management of the center anyway.

Why was the beneficiary locked in the basement? She had allegedly behaved violently when she was not allowed to have sex with an "alleged boyfriend", also a beneficiary of the center.

That's how the staff on duty motivated the abusive measure.

Placing people in solitary is, in fact, illegal. Only a psychiatrist may decide on such a course of action, definitely not the center's unqualified staff. In addition, the CRJ monitors note, even if it had been legal, the room in the basement used as solitary is utterly inadequate – consisting of just a tiled floor, no furniture whatsoever, and a hole in the wall measuring just a few square centimeters for a makeshift window.

The main goal of caregivers here seems to be “to isolate, maintain order and do the bare minimum in meeting only the most basic needs of these residents," CRJ activists conclude.

The government pays well for non-existing services

The nearly identical findings of the ANPDPD and CRJ teams shed light on a grim reality: although the state pays significant amounts of money every month for the care of these people, this money does not translate at all into medical services or activities meant to ultimately improve their condition.

"The documents drawn up by the center's social worker contain no comparative data to show the evolution/stagnation of the beneficiaries' condition at regular intervals, data that should be used to assess and identify the beneficiaries' real needs in order to provide adequate services," the ANPDPD representatives conclude in their monitoring report.

The reports the association sends to DGASPC Sector 3 every month in order to receive its funding paint an entirely different picture, where things are almost ideal.

"The social worker draws up a monthly activity report which is sent to the DGASPC Sector 3 for the payment of the services provided. (...) According to our findings, these activity reports are very similar in content, largely formal and in many cases disregard the real situation of the beneficiaries," the ANPDPD notes.

These activity reports, which no one from DGASPC Sector 3 seems to ever read before approving payment for the services of the Association of St. Gabriel the Brave, contain blatant lies.

Here's one such example: from the activity report no. 989 of 28 August 2022, we learn that a 73-year-old beneficiary with severe mobility issues, who was unable to leave her room, "took part in sports activities at the center".

"These reports list rehabilitation activities such as dance therapy, exercise, sports, art, and occupational therapy, but most of the beneficiaries are unwilling or unable to participate. The proposed activities are always the same: recreational play, walks inside the center and in the backyard, reinforcing basic autonomy skills, music therapy, and mobility exercises," ANPDPD representatives write.

"Indeed, the main activity seemed to be sitting in the yard or in bed," the CRJ report adds, and most of the beneficiaries had never left the center from the moment they arrived. "Opportunities to go out to the market, to the shops, on the street, to parks or on recreational trips outside the center were non-existent."

Aside from writing fairy tales on payment settlement papers, the social worker seems professionally incompetent. "Discussions revealed that the social worker made no distinction between the provision of services and the monitoring of services, demonstrating a lack of knowledge of the applicable legislation and inefficient use of the tools of their profession," the ANPDPD says.

Chaos reigns at DGASPC 3

Neither DGASPC Sector 3 not the St Gabriel the Brave Association actually cares for these people, who are treated as mere "fixed assets" in transactions where substantial amounts of government money line the pockets of the people behind the association named after a made-up saint.

DGASPC S3, the institution that pays the association set up by Firea's cronies, answers to the City Hall of Sector 3, headed by mayor Robert Negoiță.

He also has a close relationship with Gabriela Firea: in 2014, Firea and Florentin Pandele were godparents to Negoiță's child. "Congratulations to our godchildren Sorina and Robert Negoiță! May they enjoy our godson Vladut and may they gift him other siblings," Firea wrote on Facebook that year.

The entire collaboration between the institution subordinated to Gabriela Firea's godson and her cronies' association lacks transparency from the get-go: the tender was not published on the SEAP tender platform, so there is no information available about how many and what other bids were submitted. The only document available is the tender specifications, posted on the institution's website.

There is even an utterly cynical framework contract concluded on 4 October 2021.

Moreover, the people placed by DGASPC 3 in the care of St Gabriel the Brave represent "bundle V" out of six in the tender specifications, but "bundle IV" in the contract published on the website. However, in the bid opening sheet, the lot attributed to St Gabriel the Brave is actually bundle I.

We can't find anything about the other "bundles" of people auctioned off by DGASPC3 and where they ended up in care. No other information is to be found on the institution's website or SEAP. The bid opening sheet shows that one other "bundle", called "bundle II", was attributed to the Romantic Club Senior Home Association.

We formally requested to see these contracts but we were told, also formally – but dismissively and only after we requested them a second time – that all the contracts were available on the website.

Not true. Only one contract can be found on the institution's website, the subsequent contract number three, concluded by DGASPC S3 with the St Gabriel the Brave Association. There is no trace of the framework agreement or the other subsequent contracts.

Moved about from place to place

Talking to the social worker at the center in Pipera, Vasile Saulea, a member of the CRJ monitoring team and a sociologist, quickly realizes that people are passed from the DGASPC to the center like sheep, by headcount.

The center's social worker, Andreea Cărăulașu, the one ANPDPD found professionally lacking, admits even in discussions with CRJ monitors that she knows absolutely nothing about some of the beneficiaries before they are taken in. What's more, for some of them she doesn't even have a record of their medical or therapeutic needs.

"They just show up at the gate," says the social worker, usually after association chairman Godei calls to inform her a new beneficiary will be arriving. "Oftentimes we don't even know if we're expecting a man or a woman," the social worker continues, adding she cannot insist that DGASPC 3 employees actually do their jobs.

On the other hand, the beneficiaries themselves are not told in advance where they are going and are simply relocated to a new home from one day to the next, without having consented and without having any say in their own future.

These are people suffering from severe psychiatric disorders and such sudden relocations can have a huge negative impact. "They become aggressive because they don't know what's happening to them, they're scared," says psychologist Lili Covaci.

Some of the people who spoke to CRJ representatives during the monitoring visit said that they did not know why they were living in that center, that they would like to leave and that nobody had asked them if they wanted to live there. "The procedure by which the beneficiaries arrived in the respective centers was non-transparent," the CRJ monitors confirm.

On top of that, many of the beneficiaries don't even have a case manager, which is an essential role in social work, as this is the person who monitors these vulnerable people's progress and works with other providers to ensure their needs are being met. The case manager should be appointed by DGASPC S3, the institution responsible for monitoring the people it sent to the center.

"They said they don't have enough staff and that they will eventually appoint case managers for our residents who don't have one," the social worker told the CRJ monitors.

DGASPC S3 told ANPDPD auditors the same thing: "there is a shortage of qualified staff and steps are being taken to fill the vacant positions."

DGASPC S3 last advertised case manager job vacancies at the end of August 2022, but hired no one.

One hand washes the other: Negoiță's people turn a blind eye to Firea and Pandele's people

We asked Negoiță's subordinates whether they checked how their clients fared in the care and assistance centers they were placed in, and if so, when and what their findings were. We learned that employees of DGASPC Sector 3 had indeed checked the Pipera center of the St. Gabriel the Brave Association, among others. The visit took place on 11 May 2022.

"Following our (unannounced) visits, it was concluded that the beneficiaries are provided with adequate social services, in line with the minimum quality standards," Negoiță's people say in the response.

A few months later, in August, representatives of the ANPDPD – followed by CRJ in September – found a strikingly different situation. For example, in the conclusions of their report, the ANPDPD inspectors explicitly state that the insufficient number of employees, the center "violates the provisions of Decision No 426/2020 approving cost standards for social services, which states that the ratio of specialist care and assistance staff per person with disabilities in care and assistance centers is 1/1.20."

Moreover, among the main recommendations after the monitoring visit, the ANPDPD control team advises Ştefan Godei, chairman of the St Gabriel the Brave Association, to fill in the center's organizational chart in a timely manner to comply with its rules of operation. That means hiring a staff of 27 people, from just four at present.

On the other hand, after one year of operating as a social service provider on the basis of a temporary license – the maximum period allowed by law – the association was checked to receive its permanent license, which is valid for a five-year period. According to the law, once an NGO has been authorized as a social service provider (a mere formality, similar to activating a NACE code for a company), the center it opens can operate for one year under a temporary license for the social service provided. This temporary license is often granted solely on the basis of the NGO's own statements, and then, following a check-up, it may be granted a "permanent", regular five-year license.

Two inspectors of the National Agency for Payments and Social Inspection (ANPIS), Ilfov county branch, Andrieș Alina Mihaela and Năstase Andrei Cornel, visited the center in Pipera and checked the conditions in which beneficiaries lived and the services they were receiving.

Their visit took place at the end of May 2022. Comparing the conclusions of the AJPIS Ilfov inspectors with those of the team of three ANPDPD employees, one might get the sense that they concern two completely different centers, but both teams are talking about the same center: St Gabriel the Brave, located at 38 Ștefan cel Mare street in Voluntari.

In May, AJPIS Ilfov noted, for example, that beneficiaries were provided with adequate meals by the catering company and that menus were visibly displayed. In August, ANPDPD found that menus were not displayed at all and beneficiaries had no idea what they would be eating. Moreover, "discussions with the staff on duty revealed that no menu lists are drawn up" and that breakfast and dinner are prepared by staff from ingredients "provided by the management of the center, not acquired based on a grocery list".

The same ANPDPD inspectors note in August that beneficiaries do not "generally" receive fresh fruit and vegetables, contrary to medical recommendations. ANPIS people in Ilfov, however, say in May that the beneficiaries eat fresh fruit at least three times a week.

The Ilfov social inspection employees note unequivocally that the catering company contracted by Godei's association, SC Mititei la Tomiță SRL, provides beneficiaries with three meals and two snacks daily. However, ANPDPD notes that, although the catering contract concluded with SC Mititei la Tomiță SRL states the company is to deliver two meals and two snacks a day to beneficiaries in the center, in reality it only provides one meal – lunch – and nothing more.

What's worse is that at the end of May AJPIS Ilfov found a staff of 29 employees, who seem to evaporate by the end of August, when ANPDPD found just four employees plus Godei. The physiotherapist, for example, had not come to work "for a long time", as Godei told the ANPDPD team during their visit at the end of August. "Since spring 2022," the ANPDPD report explicitly notes. On 31 May 2022, the last day of spring, the AJPIS Ilfov inspectors note that the center "has (...) a physiotherapist".

AJPIS Ilfov employees found, in May, the "training and professional training plan" for employees. Three months later, the ANPDPD found completely untrained employees and no documents showing that they had any sort of professional training.

These findings of the AJPIS Ilfov – implausible, as they are contradicted by both the ANPDPD control team and the CRJ monitors – brought the St Gabriel the Brave Association a nearly perfect score in the assessment for the granting of a permanent license.

This is how the St Gabriel the Brave center got accredited. By ticking all the quality standards only on paper, while completely disregarding the reality of the daily lives of the center's 27 residents .

It obtained a permanent license one week before the temporary license was set to expire: on 7 July 2022.

It is clear, however, that all the specific shortcomings pointed out by the ANPDPD and the CRJ in their reports simply could not have been valid at the end of August and the beginning of September, but not in mid-May.

A well-oiled business

Just three months after receiving its temporary license, in early October 2021, not even a year after it was established as an NGO, the made-up saint Gabriel the Brave is up and running, the association of Gabriela Firea's cronies wins the fat contract from DGASPC S3, and people start coming to the house in Pipera.

From 4 October 2021 to 13 December 2021, the center operates without a health permit, despite caring for the extremely vulnerable. When it finally receives this permit, it is granted for a different form of organization, a senior home instead of a care and assistance center, where the legal requirements are different.

It is not until 22 June 2022 that it receives the necessary health permit for a center for people unable to care for themselves.

According to the documents obtained by reporters, on December 7, namely during the time it lacked a health permit, the center was fined 250 lei on the grounds that, among other things, "the employees could not prove that they had been trained in fundamental notions of hygiene".

For the period 1 May 2022 - 31 December 2022, the only contract subsequent to the framework agreement available on the website, St Gabriel the Brave receives 1,114,200 lei for care services for several people with mental disabilities. That's 3.8 million lei in total for the two years it has committed to provide care and assistance services for beneficiaries sent by DGASPC S3.

So Viși and all the other people were thrown by DGASPC S3 into the house in Pipera without giving them any details, without consulting them, and without consent. There were 27 beneficiaries, no more, no less.

When Viși died in November 2021, another beneficiary was sent to take his place in the Pipera house.

The center had to have exactly 27 beneficiaries to match the contract amount.

The people of Gabriela the Brave

While the vulnerable people in their care are withering away with each day that passes, for lack of staff and services that would at least maintain their condition if not improve it, the greedy people in the entourage of the minister for equal opportunities Gabriela Firea receive hefty monthly payments from DGASPC 3 for the center in the house in Pipera. Since that money is not being spent on the welfare and improvement of the people in their care, a great chunk of it lines their own pockets.

The chairman of the association, Ștefan Godei, and Ligia Enache have known each other for about ten years, since the time when he was "very young and very restless", as Ligia herself recounts in a Facebook post wishing him a happy birthday.

Ștefan Godei is no stranger to politics. In 2013 he was the vice-president of the Ilfov Social Democratic Youth Organization. Slowly but surely he began to make himself noticed by the more senior party members. A year later, Godei pops up in photos alongside Gabriela Firea and other senior politicians, mainly from the Social Democratic Party.

The following year, he attended the baptism of Firea and Pandele's son, a party held at the hotel owned by their godson, Robert Negoiță: "Together with friends and colleagues, singing, dancing and good times!" he wrote on Facebook at the time.

When it comes to public money, Ligia Gheorghe manages to obtain it from two positions: as a public official of the Romanian state and as a beneficiary of public contracts concluded by the state with the St. Gabriel the Brave Association, where she is vice-president.

The association is nowhere mentioned in the statements of assets and interests published in April 2022 by Ligia Enache, in her capacity as adviser to the minister of family and equal opportunities, Gabriela Firea.

Adriana Ecaterina Voicu is Ștefan Godei's life partner. In the register of associations and foundations she is listed as the person who founded the Association of St Gabriel the Brave. In 2021 she was still heading the marketing, communication and PR department of the Bucharest Youth Center, where she was appointed head of office in 2017 by Gabriela Firea, who was mayor at the time.

Adriana Voicu, Godei's partner, did not list her membership in the St Gabriel the Brave Association in her statement of assets either, even though she was required to do so by law.

Ligia Enache and Ștefan Godei are old friends, but also old business partners. Since the summer of 2015, to be precise. That's when they founded meat trading company Piu-Piu & Casa Buna 2015 SRL, which the two still run today, according to the Official Gazette, where the company is not listed as dissolved.

Just as in the case of the St Gabriel the Brave Association, the company's name does not appear in Ligia Enache's most recent statement of assets and interests, although she was required by law to mention it.

Reactions

Media Investigation Center and Buletin de București reporters tried to contact all those mentioned in the St Gabriel the Brave affair.

We spoke to the chairman of the association, Ștefan Godei. He tentatively denied the irregularities noted in the reports of state institutions and NGO activists who visited the Pipera center, saying that things "were not exactly as presented in those reports".

"We were given some recommendations and some measures to implement, we have implemented them and I have no further comment," Godei said and hung up on us.

We called back a few minutes later from a different number, asking exactly how many people had died in his Pipera center. "None! No, wait, one..." replied Godei, who apologized, saying he had just arrived "at home, with family" and didn't want to be disturbed, then hung up again.

Gabriela Firea's adviser, Ligia Gheorghe (formerly Enache), did not answer her phone or Whatsapp messages.

Neither Gabriela Firea, Florentin Pandele, nor Robert Negoiță answered the phone or replied to our messages, but two days after the attempt to contact her, minister Firea had her spokesperson at the ministry take questions.

Asked why the the minister's adviser had not mentioned her position of vice-president of in the Association of St. Gabriel the Brave in her statement of interest, the spokesman said: "The information provided to the Ministry by Ms Ligia Gheorghe, employed as a ministerial adviser, is that she no longer holds the unpaid position of vice-president of the Association of St. Gabriel the Brave, having resigned in March 2022, shortly after her employment at the Ministry. (...) As regards the statement of assets and interests of Ms Ligia Gheorghe, the employee bears full responsibility for the information provided."

We checked whether Ligia Gheorghe had in fact resigned from her leadership position in the association. As her name and position are listed in the organization's by-laws, any changes require court approval. The court system did log a request for changes to the association by-laws, dated February 2022, but it turned out to be a change of address for its registered office, with no mention of any change in the board of directors, where Ligia Gheorghe is vice-president.

Psychologist Antoaneta Preda, who provided counseling to the beneficiaries of the Pipera center for almost a year, from December 2021 to November 2022, also contradicts the unfavorable reports on the St Gabriel the Brave center. "Those people who are there, especially those with disabilities, are very well cared for, they have made a lot of progress," she told reporters.

She added, with a tinge of melancholy in her voice, that they even managed to learn to sing carols as a Christmas present to her. On top of that, contrary to the ANPDPD report, she said that the beneficiaries were often busy with various activities or games.

Antoaneta Preda also said that nobody was ever locked in solitary, but only "taken to isolation" when necessary, and that it was “normal to call the ambulance” when medical problems arose.

The psychologist confirmed that she had been absent from the center for two months in the summer of 2022, saying she was on vacation. She then added that many of the beneficiaries were sick with Covid-19 at that time. Later on during our interview she recalled that she herself had had some health issues at the time, which prevented her from seeing her beneficiaries in the Voluntari center.

----

Cristina's internment camps

(WARNING: The following content depicts instances of violence and abuse.)

Monday, 20 April 2022, Eroilor Boulevard, Voluntari. A little after 9.00 AM, a Dacia Logan pulls outside the two-story house at number 96. A few people hurriedly get out of the car and the sidewalk outside the house soon becomes animated. An ambulance arrives shortly after, then a bus of the Voluntari municipality, then more cars and ambulances.
While carpets, furniture and potted plants are hastily loaded into a few moving vans, the idling ambulances and municipal bus take in visibly ailing people. With walking sticks, walking frames, in wheelchairs and on stretchers, dozens of people are taken out of the house to be relocated a few streets away.
The moving operation lasts until close to 5.00 PM and was recorded on the surveillance cameras of the house at 96 Eroilor Blvd, known in the area as the Gerbera hotel/villa/guesthouse.
“This is the footage showing exactly how she stood me up and took off, but she had other things to hide, money was probably the last of her worries,” says Marius Sârbu, the owner of the property which, until 20 April, housed a cross between a senior home and a care and assistance center for persons with mental disabilities operated by one Cristina Maria Dumitra (formerly Văduva, née Mareș).

The anatomy of a scam

Exactly one week before, on 13 April, after not having paid utility bills or rent for several months, Dumitra had sent the landlord a short email message informing him she could no longer pay rent and was thus terminating the lease as of May 15.

“This is to inform you that starting 15 May 2022 I am unable to pay rent, therefore the lease on both locations is rightfully terminated. Outstanding debts on the two locations shall be calculated and covered from the initial deposit,” she said in the email.

The two locations entrepreneur Dumitra is referring to are villa Gerbera in Voluntari and another property she rented from Sârbu, on Violetelor Street in Ștefăneștii de Jos, where a similar center operated.
The next day after receiving that email, on 14 April, the landlord goes to check on the house in Ștefăneștii de Jos and finds utter disaster: severely ill seniors kept unclothed, dirty and untended, in beds smeared with feces.
That same day, Sârbu notifies the Ilfov Public Health Department and the Labor Ministry, denouncing the degrading treatment of beneficiaries in the center in Ștefănești.
In his complaints to authorities, he notes that the situation at Gerbera is similar, but adds he refused to go check that property after being warned by one of the employees that the beneficiaries have scabies and the house is teeming with bedbugs.
As zero actions had been taken following his complaints, a few days later, on 19 April, Sârbu notifies the Voluntari Police of the goings-on in his properties – where Cristina Maria Dumitra operated centers for vulnerable persons.
The next day, 20 April, Cristina Maria Dumitra hastily moves the beneficiaries and furniture from villa Gerbera and the center in Ștefănești, relocating both businesses in what was to become the “Residential Care and Assistance Center for Vulnerable Persons – Casa Cora”. A new large house, located a few minutes' walk from Gerbera, at number 5 Camil Petrescu Street, in Voluntari.
This is when landlord Sârbu enters villa Gerbera and notes the size of the disaster.
WARNING! Graphic photos!

Beyond photos
Another of Dumitra's former employees told Media Investigation Center and Buletin de București reporters how clients of these centers quickly degraded within months of being placed under care.
We shall call her Elena*. Elena worked at Gerbera and afterwards, at Casa Cora, where Dumitra consolidated her two businesses.
“Nothing is right in that place, believe me. They all had bedbug bites, their private parts had become maggot-infested, they had bone-deep bedsores, it's unimaginable! On any given day – any given day! – each and every day there would be two or three major, terrible irregularities. It's simply impossible to have just two caregivers in that entire home, they simply cannot handle everything,” Elena recounts her experience as an employee of the “social services” provided by Cristina Maria Dumitra.
“They had bedbugs crawling on their skin… God almighty! At Gerbera, yes. Under the bed, if you lifted the mattress, at least at night, when it was dark, they ran every which way, it was… I was utterly shocked!” Elena says.
How did the place get so filthy?
“Well, here, at Casa Cora, where we moved from Gerbera, there was just one bathroom for the entire floor. There was just one bathroom, on the first floor, for 27 people,” the woman recounts.
She recalls a horrid situation: one day she found an elderly female resident who had just soiled herself, on the bed.
“Nobody wanted to touch her, they were disgusted. I picked her up, bed sheet and all. I put her in the bathtub, because there is a bathtub in that one bathroom for 27 people…” Elena tells the story behind the photo taken at Casa Cora, shortly after the move from the two centers that had operated in Sârbu's houses in Voluntari and Ștefănești.
The situation was similar before they vacated villa Gerbera.
“They had a room at Gerbera, somewhere downstairs, in the basement. When I first started working there I heard, 'Oh, you're going down to the women in Hole?’, and I thought ‘what do they mean, the Hole?’. When I got there and saw for myself… I couldn't believe it… There was shit on the floor, you'd be slipping on shit, excuse my language but that's how it was! Nobody went down to their room, the smell was horrid… The women there were kept mostly locked up,” Elena adds bitterly.
“Was there medical assistance?” we ask.
“No such thing! We called the ambulance. I would say: ‘This person has been running a fever for three days now. We need to give them something, we need a doctor.’ ‘Call the ambulance!’ was their reply. ‘Why did you call us, when this man has a 38-degree fever?’ the ambulance people said and refused to take him to the hospital. And so that man died of septic shock. Toma Ion was his name. He died in our center, on Camil Petrescu Street. In three months, the man died of septic shock. I'd kept insisting he needed medicine, antibiotics… I couldn't get any more antibiotics, I would buy them myself from the pharmacy…” the woman tells of one dreadful experience.
We ask whether the center had any contracts with doctors.
“They had doctors. There was the cardiologist, who came in one a month, every three weeks or so, and asked about each resident, notebook in hand, 'and how is this one?’. He never examined them, he was too disgusted! He never even saw them. There was a lady psychologist also. She came in and went from room to room. That poor woman, she was the only one who actually went from room to room. There was an internist, who came in, sat at a desk and filled in paperwork and that was about it. And a psychiatrist who just sat around and did nothing,” she recounts.
And there was a lot for doctors to see. Battered residents, for instance
“I found this lady like this. Most likely she was beaten before I got to work, I don't know. They always said the residents had accidentally hurt themselves bumping into something or other! This little old lady always caressed my hand because I brought her food and I always gave her seconds, I always did my best to give her seconds because I could see she was still hungry, and one day I come in and find her like this,” Elena recounts.

The same woman, on a different day, is photographed with new bruises.

“There was a man who came downstairs because he was starving. He went down to the kitchen to steal food, he would be caught and they beat him. Another lady, with mental problems, would pee wherever she saw floor tiles. And she would cackle, it was just something she did, and one day I come in and she has a black eye. She had a black eye. I asked my co-workers what had happened and they said, 'We told her to get out of bed and she hit her eye on the bed-frame.’ Come on… Or the other woman, who 'fell out of bed'. Of course they'd beaten her. And the thing is the residents didn't fight each other. The caregivers beat them!” says Elena.
“It was clear as day that they were beaten, what the hell… Another lady… I found her with a black eye and a bruised forehead. They said she had fallen out of bed, but that woman was paralyzed. She had to be turned over to be changed, but I'll tell you what they did: the turned her in their usual brutal manner and must have bumped her head into the bedside table,” she says.
“These things happened at Gerbera or where they are now, at Casa Cora?” we ask, stupefied.
“Both here and there,” Elena answers in a heartbeat.
Food? Nothing, just watered down soup
“And when I say watered down, I mean really watered down, and even that was brought from home by caregivers. Watered down soup, some potato stew, watered down pasta concoctions. Whatever was on hand. Not one snack, no piece of fruit... That was it,” she says.
“Around 8.30 AM, they were given – this was standard when I was working there – the cheapest salami, ARO salami, ARO margarine. Marmalade, not even some proper jam... Many of them refused to eat, they had been used to better food. For lunch, there was that watered down soup and a watered down concoction for a second course. Either that or… string beans, all the time string beans and bean stew, also watered down. I kept saying, 'Stop feeding them beans, it makes them soil themselves, it gives them diarrhea because it's made with old, crappy ingredients, please, just stop serving them beans!'” Elena recounts.
“The people who had to be spoon-fed or the very old ones didn't get any meat, only those who protested were given some meat. They made something out of bones, backs, rumps, necks. So those people never had any proper meat. All of them were malnourished. If you look at pictures of how they were when they came in and what they had become…” Elena continues.
WARNING! Graphic photos!
The dead
We asked Elena how many beneficiaries dies while she worked for Dumitra, both at Gerbera and at Casa Cora, apart from the man who had thrown himself from the balcony.
She couldn't say for sure. During our long interview, when talking about various beneficiaries, she often paused with a sigh, saying “I hope they're still alive!”.
“I wasn't working there when that man killed himself, I only heard the story. But I've seen enough for myself… One lady, I held her hand for an entire day until she died. She had refused to eat for three weeks. Another lady [died] three days after coming in, she had generalized edema. In her case, we expected death. You know, it's normal for people to die in senior homes, but not like this. It's normal for them to die of old age, but not... They got worse with each passing day!” the woman says.
The evidence
Gina and Elena's former boss, Cristina Maria Dumitra, has been in the business of vulnerable people for 11 years. During this time, according to the Official Gazette, she owned at least six companies that operated in at least six houses.
Inside one such house, Media Investigation Center and Buletin de București reporters found a clearer answer regarding the deceased, as well as other undeniable evidence supporting Elena's story.
In a pile of trash left behind by Cristina Dumitra's people, we found a notebook. Underneath the chic green cover, it says “Registry book”.
Left behind by Cristinei Maria Dumitra's people, the notebook is revealing for the horrors that took place at villa Gerbera, as it covers that period. We find, for instance, that in December 2020, five beneficiaries died out of a total of 34. Two others, hospitalized in December 2020, died at the beginning of January 2021.

Although December is the month registering the most “exits”, as deaths (and hospital admissions) are registered, there are quite a few deaths in the other months covered in the notebook. We counted a total of 21 deaths in a 13-month period, from February 2020 to March 2021.
In a different file, titled “Deceased”, there are two more people registered, but it is unclear when they died.
In the same pile of papers left behind by Dumitra we find a “statistic” made by her employees, which shows how people came to be living in such unspeakable filth: many of the beneficiaries were bathed just once a month.

For Easter Sunday 2020, for instance, a report referencing part of the beneficiaries, probably one floor of the building, shows that none of the residents had been bathed that day.

In another document, someone who seems to be the caregivers' supervisor, notes angrily that on the morning of 8 February 2020, when she came to work, she found the beneficiaries dirty, their diapers unchanged and their clothes soaked in urine and smeared with feces.

Several end-of-day reports back up Elena's claims that beneficiaries were beaten at Cristina Dumitra's center. The documents note that beneficiaries “hurt themselves” and had black eyes. In one single day, for instance, two women had hurt themselves “accidentally”. Interestingly, the report notes that everything had been business as usual that day, but a second hand then adds, in red pen and all capital letters, three incidents involving the beneficiaries.

The pile of papers makes light into the issue of meals as well. We find an old invoice from Metro. The invoice, which dates from 2017, confirms that, apart from vegetables, every item bought for the residents' meals was the cheapest available product.

“I should have known!”
Marius Sârbu says he never imagined things had become so tragic on his property.
He recalls then that, before she fled with residents in tow, leaving behind a mountain of debts, prompted by complaints from employees and providers she hadn't paid either, Dumitra changed the previous leases to a different company.
“I should have known then that something was up. I was wrong, especially since I had forgiven her once before. I forgave her the first time she left without paying, I had leased her my property for a center before. That time she moved somewhere in Afumați…” says Marius Sârbu.
We checked Sârbu's story. According to the Official Gazette, over the past 11 years, Cristina Dumitra had six companies either in her own name, which was Mareș at that time, or in the names of relatives.
Her business ventures reveal a modus operandi: Cristina Maria Dumitra lets one company accumulate debts, then cleans up her past by setting up a brand new company. She accumulates debts to the state and providers, then starts over, setting up another new company, in some other rented property, and so on.
For 11 years.
She started her first business making money off vulnerable people in August 2012, under the name “Casa de Odihnă Maria” (Rest home Maria).
She was 25.
One year later, Dumitra opened a new company, Casa de Odihnă Cristina, this time in association with her mother, Florica Mareș. Trade Registry Office data shows the mother was an associate in name only, since Cristina Maria Mareș (now Dumitra) had power of attorney over the company activity.
The first irregularities documented by reporters date from 2015. The Local Labor Inspectorate fines Casa de Odihnă Cristina 30,000 lei for employing people without work contracts.
This, however, turned out to be small fry compared to the horrors that were going on in the centers operated by Dumitra's companies.
It is unclear whether labor inspectorate issues or other debts catch up with the young businesswoman, prompting her to set up yet another company: Centrul de Îngrijire și Asistență Casa Maria SRL (Care and Assistance Center Casa Maria).
Soon enough, Cristina Maria Dumitra's business starts having trouble. Living conditions in the care center are subpar and debts keep piling up. “The caregivers are tired, lack patience and empathy, they yell at the residents, there are girls who even smack the residents with their own urine-soaked sheets,” someone wrote in a Google review of that center.
Its finances are a mess and Casa Maria SRL ends up owing 400,000 lei in government taxes.
Dumitra fixes the situation in her usual manner: she sets up a new company, Casa Bunicii Anastasia, in her father's name.
Six months later, on 20 April 2022, Cristina Maria Dumitra scams Marius Sârbu, the landlord, leaving behind unpaid utility bills of thousands of euros, and hastily moves all the beneficiaries into her new Casa Cora.
In her signature style, this move is accompanied by the set-up of a brand new company: House Grandma Anastasia SRL, a literal English translation of her previous company's name. This company she opens in the name of her newly-wedded husband, Ovidiu Dumitra.
Dumitra partners with Godei, an ally of the Firea-Pandele couple
While navigating companies, associates and rented houses, for a few months in 2019, Cristina Maria Dumitra becomes and associate of Ștefan Godei, a close ally of the Ilfov branch of the Social Democratic Party, who would in turn become the owner of a senior home and later the chairman of the St Gabriel the Brave Association. His association vice-president is Ligia Gheorghe, the longtime right hand of Gabriela Firea, most recently as adviser to Firea in her role as minister of equal opportunities.
The association of Ștefan Godei and Ligia Gheorghe opens two care and assistance centers for persons with disabilities and starts making a lot of money off the government, as shown in the previous two parts of this investigation.
Dumitra and Godei were associates in the company Centrul de Recuperare pentru Seniori SRL, which operated in the house in Afumați where Godei later opened a senior home operated by his company Creative Home SRL and then the Armonia center operated by the St Gabriel the Brave Association. Both companies owned by Godei continue to operate at that location and have contracts with the General Directorate of Social Assistance and Child Protection (DGASPC) Ilfov.
In April 2019, Dumitra swindles Mariu Sârbu the first time. She had been renting villa Gerbera at 96 Eroilor for around two years when, one day, she loads up all the beneficiaries and moves them into Godei's place in Afumați.
Gina was her employee at the time. “We put all the residents in cars and we moved to Afumați,” Gina recalls.
“After she left me hanging the first time, I forgave her and took her back. She owned me around 10,000 euros in rent and utility bills. She paid me half the money and then paid the rest in installments, and I decided to give her a second chance. I was wrong,” says Marius Sârbu.
How did Mareș/Văduva/Dumitra fly under the government's radar? Institutions are slow to react
From publicly available data and interviews with Dumitra's former employees and former landlord Marius Sârbu, we understand that whenever she “moved” from one house to another or one company to another, Cristina Maria Dumitra always had a new company already set up, accredited and ready to have her new center licensed at the new address. “She always had her paperwork in order,” says Elena.
Cristina Maria Dumitra takes advantage of an anomaly in the law: any company can be accredited as a social service provider just on the basis of a statement. After that, also based on a statement, it can receive a temporary license to operate a social service: senior home, care and assistance center for persons with disabilities or some other type of social service. The problem arises when the law allows the provider, be it a company or an NGO, to start taking people into care, sometimes even from the government itself. This is akin to being allowed to drive on public roads the minute one signs up for driving school.
Besides this anomaly in the law, Cristina Maria Dumitra takes advantage of something else: the passiveness of state institutions. This is where her move from Gerbera, residents in tow, becomes essential.
Landlord Marius Sârbu notified authorities of the improper conditions in which beneficiaries were held. However, he notified them only after he had been told he wouldn't be paid and, less than a week later, the business was relocated. By the time state institutions reacted, it was already too late.
The Labor Ministry and the Ilfov Public Health Department, both notified by Sârbu on 14 April, respond to his complaints five weeks later and nearly two months later, respectively.
Sârbu's complaint – accompanied by some photos, not even the most graphic ones – left with the Labor Ministry registration office on 14 April takes until 19 May to reach AJPIS Ilfov, the local arm of the National Agency for Payments and Social Inspection (ANPIS), subordinated to the ministry. AJPIS Ilfov did check the new company but found nothing wrong: the house where Cristina Maria Dumitra had only recently relocated her business still looked decent and the conditions were still good.
It took five weeks for a complaint that required urgent intervention to travel from the Labor Ministry on Dem I. Dobrescu Street to the AJPIS Ilfov office at 7 Magheru. A mere 500 meters, according to Google Maps. A six-minute walk.

Sârbu's complaint of 14 April to the Ilfov Public Health Department get a response from the institution on 3 June. A few days after emailing this complaint, also with photos attached, Sârbu personally went down to the institution's office seeing as nothing was happening. He even threatened to alert the media and registered a new complaint, on the spot. A few days after that, exasperated, he registered a third complaint.

The first thing public servants at the local health department tell Sârbu by way of reply is that the houses indicated – namely, his own properties – “no longer host care activities for the elderly”.
Sârbu alerted the police later, on 19 April. The Ilfov county police directed his complaint to the police in Voluntari, which registered it on the following. A response, however, reached Sârbu on May 16. Police tells him in this reply that check-ups had been conducted following his complaint – the reply doesn't say when said check-ups occurred – and that none of his claims could be verified.
Apart from the institutions called upon to intervene, how come nobody knew what was going on there? Who was supposed to complain about the conditions in which these people were kept?
The employees? From our interviews with Elena and Gina, as well as others, the people who worked for Cristina Maria Dumitra only ever confronted her when she owed them money. Some of the disgruntled employees would alert authorities of the conditions in the center, but authorities either came to check too late and Dumitra's center would be at a different address, or Dumitra would be warned ahead of time and was thus prepared for the check-up, which would find everything in order.
Some of the employees did their best to improve things, but such efforts were only ever individual. One employee, for instance, when leaving over unpaid wages, tells Dumitra she prefers to donate the money she is owed to the center's residents. “(...) to buy individual wash bowls and bath sponges for each of the patients,” she said.
Those who pay for the “care services” here? Namely the residents' families or the government. In the last couple of years, the pandemic was the perfect excuse for the owner to deny residents' family members to visit the centers.
The people outside couldn't see anything, not even those who wanted to put someone into care. “People would sometimes come up to the gate saying they wanted to bring someone to live at the center. At Gerbera she didn't let anyone inside. 'If you want to bring someone in, fine, if not, also fine, but you can't come in!’ She only took in those whose families agreed to just leave them at the door and we'd go get them,” Elena recounts.
There were some exceptions.
“People would visit sometimes, but we would know beforehand. Or if, for instance, someone showed up unannounced, we let them in through the gate but we asked them to wait outside, we didn't allow them upstairs because of Covid. We'd say, 'give us your number and we'll call you on video from the room so you can talk to the person.’ Then we wiped the person's face and mouth, fixed their hair a little and that was all,” Elena explains.
Covid-19 was a perfect excuse not keep even authorities away.
“If you ask the Voluntari city hall how many times they knocked on the gate at Gerbera and nobody answered... Not even for the census. I sometimes answered the gate. The [census] lady said, 'There are a lot of people at this address and we must take down their information!’ and I called and told her (Dumitra, the owner – ed.n.). She said, ‘Yes, yes, I'll call them.’ I don't know whether she called or not, but I doubt it. They didn't open the gate, they just didn't!” Elena continues.
Since her papers were in order, Cristina Maria Dumitra received beneficiaries from families unable or unwilling to tend to them, as well as from municipalities in Ilfov county.
“The state paid, through social security, she was associated with Bălăceanca. There were social cases, people with no families, homeless people. I think she must have got something from municipalities, it's not like she took twenty-something people in for free. In Ștefănești, she always took social cases from the hospital,” says Gina, who worked for Dumitra for many years, but doesn't seem to understand that a state psychiatric hospital cannot be an “associate” of a company that operates a center for persons with disabilities or a senior home.
Confirmation
At the beginning of September, a team of the Center for Legal Resources (CRJ) arrives at Casa Cora for an unannounced monitoring visit. Cristina Dumitra's center is still new, the residents have only been here a few months. Even so, irregularities found are serious: at the time of this first visit, as well as the following two, in October and November, respectively, the new company operating the center employs just two caregivers. It has, however, more than 60 beneficiaries, far exceeding the center's capacity of just 48 residents.
Despite the CRJ team's official capacity, authorized in protocols with state authorities, monitors were unable to learn from the supervisor of the center, the third employee they always found there, essential information: how many beneficiaries does Casa Cora have exactly and where do they come from, under what contracts.
“We were told we could not have access to this information, which is kept by the ‘boss’, by which the employee most likely meant the wife of the company's manager, Mister Dumitra. Neither the 'boss' nor her husband could be contacted in order to provide this essential information,” Georgiana Pascu, program manager at CRJ, told reporters.
From talks with this employee of the center, CRJ monitors learned that, besides beneficiaries placed under care by their families, the center has a contract with the Pantelimon Social Assistance Department, and contracts with DGASPC Ilfov and the Voluntari Social Assistance Department were to be signed shortly.
Reporters requested information from the two institutions. DGASPC Ilfov responded officially on 28 December 2022 saying the institution did not at that time have any contract with Cristina Maria Dumitra's newest company, while the subordinates of longtime Voluntari mayor Pandele registered our request on 5 January 2023 but never replied.
Even in the absence of basic factual information, CRJ monitors note that the center is overcrowded and the residents are mostly untended. “There is one bathroom for each of the building's two floors, meaning just two bathrooms for more than 60 people, all of whom are fully dependent. A perfect medium for major hygiene problems,” says Pascu.
“The entire building smelled strongly of urine and in some spaces there were piles of dirty laundry and used materials such as adult diapers, toilet paper, and rags on the floor,” CRJ monitors note in their visitation report.
Moreover, the beneficiaries looked terrible.
“Most residents were extremely thin, 'skin and bone'. The center supervisor showed us the dining hall and the kitchen, both located in the building's basement, but said the residents' food came from a catering company in Afumați. We were not shown any catering contract, nor any menus for any of the residents, there was no information on whether any of them had any type of food intolerance or medically-motivated dietary requirements,” the CRJ report notes.
It could be any other catering company in Afumați or it could be the same story: non-existent catering from SC Mititei la Tomiță SRL, in fact stews concocted in the kitchen of the Armonia center, run by Ștefan Godei and Ligia Gheorghe, close allies of the Firea-Pandele couple. We don't know.
According to the center supervisor, Casa Cora has contracts with all sorts of specialist doctors but no doctor was ever found on the premises during any of the three visits by CRJ in the period September-November 2022. The beneficiaries who talked to the CRJ team could not confirm the availability of constant medical assistance.
Under such circumstances, dramatic situations evidently arise.
“On the second floor, one female resident was living in the hallway. She says she retired for medical reasons, she used to be an electrician. She doesn't know whether she has any family, she doesn't know whether she has any income. She has no personal belongings, no bedside table or closet for her to use. Her bed is placed behind a closet locked with chains. Her mattress is wrapped in cellophane with only a sheet on top, there was no pillow or blanket. She has no activity all day, she would like a book. She is unable to walk and does not benefit from a wheelchair, she gets around by crawling on all fours everywhere (to the bathroom and downstairs), and ever since she was placed in the center she hasn't been outside in the courtyard,” CRJ monitors note in the report.
This resident is not the only one who doesn't wish to live here in these conditions. Several beneficiaries are kept in this place against their will. CRJ activists documented in detail the case of one female resident caught in the middle of a dispute between her two daughters: one of them lives in Romania and wants to take ownership of her mother's house, while the other lives in Italy and is trying to help her mother leave the center and return to her own home.
“Although she had told the center employees she no longer wished to live there and the lawyer of her second daughter notified the center it had no grounds to keep the woman there against her will, center representatives took no action to resolve the situation and continue to deprive the woman of her freedom on no grounds,” the CRJ report notes.
Outsiders have no way of seeing the nightmarish reality of this center. People are locked in, they can't go outside, not even accompanied – and there is no one to accompany them – while visitors are not allowed inside.
When Media Investigation Center and Buletin de București reporters first went to Casa Cora, on the morning of 18 August 2022, there was a sign on the gate in which the operating company's manager, Ovidiu Dumitra, Cristina Maria Dumitra's husband, cited the Covid-19 pandemic to ban visitor access inside until 30 September 2022, reserving the option of extending that term.
Epilogue
Most likely, since it operates in the same way as the centers before it, it is only a matter of time until Casa Cora ends up in the same deplorable state as all the previous spaces where Cristina Maria Dumitra operated her centers.
The woman who was found sleeping in the hallway when CRJ first visited Casa Cora, the bedridden woman who was forced to crawl on all fours to the bathroom or up and down the stairs, still sleeps in the same place. By CRJ's third visit in November, the large hallway had been divided with a PVC wall.
“This is still very hard for me. I still dream at night that I go to the gate and see them in the yard,” sighs Elena.
Elena and Gina were both cheated out of their pay by the owner Dumitra and did not part ways with her on friendly terms.
Marius Sârbu, the deceived landlord, had to gut both his properties. He had to throw out all the furniture, replace everything in the bathrooms and even had to replace the doors and door-frames. Pest control alone cost him thousands of lei.
Today, nearly one year after Dumitra tricked him a second time, villa Gerbera is fully renovated and has new tenants. They are “not social service providers”.
“I've had enough of that for the rest of my life,” Sârbu adds bitterly.
Sârbu was easy to find: he is battling Dumitra in court to recover tens of thousands of euro in unpaid rent and utilities, plus tens of thousands of euros for the work that had to be done to make his properties livable again.
He is afraid he won't be able to get much out of her and is disappointed in the Romanian state.
A few minutes' walk from the house she left in ruins, in the new “social service” center owned by Cristina Maria Mareș (formerly Văduva, currently Dumitra), people wither and die.
Until they die, however, they bring in good money for the owner and her new husband Ovidiu Dumitra, a former judicial police officer.
The two of them met when Ovidiu Dumitra came to villa Gerbera on a job. Together with a prosecutor, he was there to photograph the body of the man who committed suicide by throwing himself from the second-floor balcony.
At the end of the year, on 22 December 2022, the two spouses celebrated the birthday of one of their children from previous marriages. They threw a big party, an accordion player can be seen behind the birthday girl in the Facebook photo. “Happy birthday, my princess! Mommy and daddy loves [sic!] you very much!” Dumitra wrote on Facebook.
Reporters tried to contact Cristina Maria Dumitra to ask about her activity in this type of businesses. We called her but she requested that we text instead.
We sent her a few general questions regarding the centers she operated and were surprised at her response: she essentially offered to sell out Gabriela Firea's cronies who, under the St Gabriel the Brave Association umbrella, are her competitors in the business of vulnerable persons.
“Good evening I too have a lot to tell you about mrs Firea's centers that's where you should investigate not my place where I take people from the street out of pity and with no charge.And I didn't open 6 companies in 10 years,you must be mistaking me for someone else,” Dumitra wrote in a text message, after which she excused herself saying she couldn't speak to us because she had “a very bad cold”.
We asked Cristina Dumitra to put us in touch with her husband but he too, she said, was just as ill.
“My husband is on antibiotics he is sicker than me we were on vacation why do I have to explain myself to you,” Dumitra texted.
When we insisted for a quick chat on the phone, Cristina Maria Dumitra scolded us saying we were “harassing her”. She asked us to stop texting her and offered us her lawyer's number.
We tried to talk to one Ioana Dragomir, the Dumitras' right hand at Casa Cora. She, too, was unable to answer any of our questions and promised that we would soon be contacted by Cristina Maria Dumitra's husband, the manager of the company.
No one got back to us.

*Names have been changed to protect their identity.