Intercapital's defrauded depositors picket Presidential Palace to protest payback failure

A group of over 50 depositors with the Intercapital Financial Concern, which went bankrupt back in 1997, demonstrated today outside the the Presidential Palace, demanding that the state must refund them the lost money, Info-Prim Neo reports. Nistor Samohvalov, the chairman of a public association called “The Depositors and Obligees Robbed and Defrauded by Intercapital”, says that the government is to blame for the “created precedent”, as the National Securities Commission, the then governmental agency responsible for the field, allowed itself the risk of registering 2 million lei worth of assets, although Intercapital's equity capital was but 100 lei. “We brought President Vladimir Voronin a candle to commemorate the souls of the 650 persons swindled by Intercapital, who died over the past year”, Samohvalov said. Vasile Josan, a protester, revealed that, more than a decade after Intercapital declared bankruptcy, some of the depositors are still to get back sums of up to 100,000 lei. “We received some 20 percent of our money. We are resolute to stay here until they refund us in full”. The depositors, mostly retirees, said they lodged an application with the European Court of Human Rights concerning the Intercapital case, hoping that they will eventually get their money back from the government's coffers. Intercapital declared bankruptcy two years after inception in 1995, which, many think, suggests that it was a scheme. In 2002, a domestic court sentenced Intercapital's director Vasile Caras in his absence to 25 years in prison. The fugitive was captured and extradited by Romanian authorities in late 2005.