Author: Iosefina Pascal
Exactly when you thought that the discussion about the SRI General Florian Coldea and his colleagues with criminal links from UNTOLD ended, I present to you the exclusive information that proves that Ovidiu Toma and Bogdan Mărunțiș, together with their protector and ‘godfather’, Florian Coldea, set up a business that can represent the greatest vulnerability and threat to the national security of Romania and its partners.
CryptoDATA presents itself as a multinational company with hundreds of employees, dozens of international projects, and it is said that will be worth a billion dollars in a year.
The financial data of CryptoDATA proves something else: We are talking about a turnover of 12 million lei in 2022, profit of 2.5 million lei, debts of 10 million lei and 42 employees.
Ovidiu Toma about MotoGP:
„Indeed, the investment made amounts to an exposure, not a price. We can not disclose the price, but the exposure is close to 50.000.000 euros for 4 years. We can not disclose to the public the amount written in the contract, but it is a fairly large amount and it is a very big effort that we made just to expose our products, services and know-how for the whole world. Of course the transaction was not carried out in crypto. We do not make cryptocurrencies, we do cryptography, so the equipment for secure communications uses blockchain technology and other technologies. CryptoDATA is not a financial business, it is a technical business. So of course it was not a transaction in crypto-currencies”, the company’s director explained for Mediaflux.
The first lie:
“CryptoDATA does not deal with cryptocurrencies, but with data encryption”, says Ovidiu Toma.
However, there is no sales service. This is the first case in the world of a software and technology that nobody talks about. Nobody talks about CryptoDATA, except themselves. Cisco, Kaspersky, Bitlocker, Vircom, Bitdefender. You can find reviews about these firms and their products, as well as a list of the companies that use their software. I found almost nothing about CryptoDATA, except paid articles in the Romanian press. We will return soon to the subject of CryptoDATA’s operating and data encryption system.
The second lie:
CryptoDATA says Wispr is the Romanian alternative to WhatsApp and Telegram and has 1 million users. In reality, the Wispr app has a little over 50,000 downloads on Android and a few thousand on iOS and many negative reviews exactly about data security and operability. A little too weak to be worth a BILLION dollars in a year, as Ovidiu Toma says:
“We are also developing a fintech platform that we will associate with Wispr. Thus, we will provide users with both the secure communications app and the ability to make quick micropayments without bank fees. We are already working on authorizations and licenses to become an issuer of electronic payments. In the midst of next year we will have a global launch. Our target is to reach 15-20 million users on the app this time next year. This way, Wispr can become the next Romanian unicorn and the first chat platform with integrated micropayments. There are similar apps in Asia, but in Europe I have not identified such a solution. The business model is exactly that of Alibaba and WeChat”, Ovidiu Toma told Profit.ro.”
I do believe him when he says that he used the WeChat system for inspiration; he has not made a firm in China for nothing…
I wanted to buy one of their phones, but I gave up, because CryptoDATA phones have the technical specifications of a phone from 5 years ago. Phones of maximum 1.000 lei sold with over 800 dollars, running an operating system that is nowhere to be found and the super CryptoDATA software that nobody talks about.
Basically, the phone is an old Android made in China, an Android on which you can only install the apps that CryptoDATA wants.
I also tried to buy a laptop and, again, I gave up, because the laptop sold for 1.000 dollars has the technical specifications of a laptop of about 1.200 lei, over 5 years old and running the same operating system of CryptoDATA.
These mobile phones and laptops, that are still on sale, were part of a kit that the investors who had been fooled received after investing money in the Ponzi scheme called Karatbars!
What is Karatbars? Probably the greatest gold-based Ponzi scheme of all time.
Founded in 2011 by the German Harald Seiz, along with the co-founder Josip Heit and partners Alex Bodi, Ovidiu Toma, current head of CryptoDATA, Karatbars claimed to offer gold bullions to customers who invested money. Karatbars then moved to the cryptocurrency area and was forced out of business a few years ago.
The digital currency of Karatbars, KaratGold Coin (KBC), started to be traded in July 2018, exactly when Ovidiu Toma was working as Technical Director.
The idea they presented to naive investors was to allow virtual payments based on gold. Unfortunately for those who believed, this did not happen, despite the fact that they had “400 Tons of gold in a vault at one of thier mines in Madagascar” as Toma, Seiz, Bodi and Heit said.
In reality, there was no safe and there was no mine.
If the digital currency issued by Karatbars was actually guaranteed in gold, the company would have to hold over 5 billion dollars in gold.
Obviously, after the international Kryptobars fraud scandal exploded, and Alex Bodi went to prison for organized crime and human trafficking, Ovidiu Toma said he had nothing to do with the scam, that he only sold mobile phones and that he had collaborated with Karatbars and the other company, GSB, only in 2019.
That is false! CryptoDATA handled, for tens of millions of euros, the production of devices, the installation of its own software, as well as their transportation for GSB and Karatbars.
Sources from inside of the CryptoDATA company report that, at the end of the “collaboration” with Karatbars, Ovidiu Toma and Bogdan Maruntis, with the complicity of Florian Coldea, put pressure on Josip Heit and Harald Seiz in order to take over their goods, not just the money necessary to produce them. Today, the two are being investigated by international authorities, but of course that Ovidiu Toma and Bogdan Maruntis are “honest” businessmen who sell the products resulting from this business, and invest the money from the Ponzi scheme.
There are interlopers, arms dealers and paid assassins introduced in the video presentation of the phone and laptop as potential customers of these products that ensure your data protection. Amazing!
Well, that was just the preamble! I present to you exclusive documents, discussions, photo-video evidence, which shows how big and illegal the involvement of CryptoDATA in the Ponzi scheme of Kryptobars is. From possible scams, fraudulent marketing, tax evasion, money laundering, European funds embezzlement, and commerce with masks, you will decide whether such a company can handle the cyber security of Romania and the defense industry.
The Bitcoin laundering farm – the business of BCCO officer Adela Maruntis and MAPN Colonel Bogdan Maruntis
The dirty business CryptoDATA started from mining cryptocurrencies through illegal methods, contrary to Ovidiu Toma’s words:
In June 2018, Jet Wash MBG SRL signed a financing contract with the Ministry of Development to access non-reimbursable European funds worth 200,000 euros. The acquisition was approved for the project ‘Aquisition of IT equipment for the diversification of the activity of the company” and, according to public documents, consists of “the establishment of a data processing center that allows to increase the competitiveness of the company by providing data processing services directly to customers, both in Romania and abroad”. In the documents of the ROP project (Regional Operational Programme), Elisabeta Maruntis, former economic director of Gerom Buzau, is mentioned as being financially responsible for Jet Wash MBG SRL.
In the same year, 2018, Omar and the former director of Gerom, Elisabeta Maruntis, founded Cryptodata Cloud SRL, in Buzau, a company that does online commerce. A year earlier, Jet Wash MBG SRL has asked OSIM to register the brand ‘CryptoData”.
In one of the documents presenting the multiple lawsuits between Gerom and Jet Wash MBG SRL, it is claimed that Gerom rented a warehouse used for laundry, and this proved to be only an interface of a cryptocurrency factory. Therefore, SC Jet Wash MBG SRL is a company that has exploited SC Gerom SA. owned by Eugen Cojocaru and Elisabeta Marutis. The two have undertaken this activity, frauding SC Gerom SA. They basically rented the spaces from SC Gerom SA, sold the electric power at a ridiculous price and they hosted cryptocurrency mining equipment, meaning that they sublet space and electrical power to subcontractors at prices from 6 euros and up to 14 euros per equipment (a mining equipment has approximately 50×50 cm, so that in one square meter enters at least 24 equipments); thus, SC Jet Wash MBG SRL appropriated the profit that SC Gerom SA could have made, by using its goods.
The sources inside CryptoDATA told me that we are talking about over 25,000 mining units hosted in the hall in Buzau. Mining units that even Bogdan Maruntis took care to bring to the country and operate.
But Colonel Bogdan Maruntis also dealt with other businesses for and with Ovidiu Toma:
For example, Bogdan Maruntis tells us extensively how he “prepared” shipments of CryptoDATA phones from China so as not to pay customs duties. Just like he managed to import “miners” for the cryptocurrency farm in Buzau.
Colonel Maruntis also told us that you can use fictitious transport documents to justify shady payments. Or, more simply, Maruntis teaches us that “it is not necessary that the documents mention what is transported”. And for all of this to be possible, we find out that Toma and Maruntis have “agents” at customs that “help” them. Do you remember Mr. Liviu Durbac? The customs officer at Coldea’s table from UNTOLD? Maybe someone should ask him how he “solves” these illegalities at customs. He has enough experience.
Sources inside CryptoDATA also confirmed the most serious aspect that threathens Romania’s national security. If we talked about scams, businesses and tax evasion until now, now we reached the climax.
The CryptoDATA OS installed on their devices mines cryptocurrencies in the background.
That means that, besides the cryptocurrencies that are mined by Toma and Maruntis in the hall illegally taken over in Buzau, they also mine cryptocurrencies remotely, via CryptoDATA devices that people have bought. In other words, these ‘smart guys’ make money using someone else’s device and electricity, and these things happen, obviously, without the users being aware of it.
Thus, a serious problem arises, according to sources and experts in the field: if they run a program in the background to mine cryptocurrencies, then they could run any other type of program. And here, of course, I refer to any type of spyware that monitors user activity on devices.
We get to the data encryption system provided by CryptoDATA, or what we called “Coldea’s locksmiths” .
Imagine sending a letter to a friend, and to make sure no one opens it, you put it in a closed metal box with a padlock. Your friend has the key, opens it, reads it and it is all done. The problem is that the locksmith, not just the recipient, also has the key.
In other words, the manufacturers and suppliers of this type of software, meaning the CryptoDATA employees and agents, are the ‘locksmiths’ who can open the “letter boxes” and access the information transmitted by users.
As CryptoDATA itself showed in the video presentation of devices and encryption technology, their customers are mercenaries, interlopers, traffickers from Colombia (where they had business), and ‘smart guys’ from Dubai, etc. The national security issue arises when STATE INSTITUTIONS, or supra-state structures, become CryptoDATA customers.
Just as the cryptocurrency farm (CryptoDATA original) was financed with EUROPEAN MONEY given by the Romanian state, so is the current company CryptoDATA – with European funds for projects of the Romanian state, including in the defense field.
As an example, LASER DEFENSIVE SYSTEM “CERBER” from Magurele. A military project of the National Institute for Research and Development in Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics, with the aim of combating organized crime and terrorism.
Or the development of digital infrastructure of other research institutes or public institutions.
It is also interesting that Ovidiu Toma’s company, GOLD Standard International, is the majority shareholder in the “Institute for testing, research and development for agricultural mechanization – Romatest” – S.A., dealing with the design and execution of machinery, testing of tractors, technological means of transport, machinery, installations, equipment, appliances and tools produced by foreign companies that are used in agriculture and food industry in Romania and the execution of works of national interest, which are included in the institute’s activity.
Can you imagine what the penetration of such a company, arising out of nowhere, with capital obtained from businesses with crooks, inside the defense systems of Romania, a NATO member country, means?
Or within the EU’s public institutions?
All the information of these institutions will be accessible by Florian Coldea’s locksmiths, that is, by CryptoDATA. Information is power and very, very, very much money.
What do the representatives of the Romanian state, who supported and promoted CryptoDATA devices and software, have to say now?
To make it even more interesting, respectable IT businessmen, such as Florian Coldea’s protege, Ovidiu Toma, and Coldea’s godson, Colonel Bogdan Maruntis, also took advantage of the pandemic.
More specifically, they brought tens of thousands of masks from China in a state of emergency, when the commerce with masks was in bloom in Romania.
It would be very interesting to see how many masks they eventually bought, at what price, where they sold them and at what price.
Given how well the boys “managed” the evasion of customs duties, I wonder if the presence of the customs officer Liviu Durbac at the UNTOLD festival was even accidental, as he was hosted by Ovidiu Toma in Dubai and seated at the table of Florian Coldea.
I wonder if the superiors of Coldea’s godson, Bogdan Maruntis, knew that he carries out economic activities for CryptoDATA, mines cryptocurrencies for CryptoDATA and that he was “in charge” of the transport of goods for CryptoDATA.
I wonder why the business partners of Ovidiu Toma, Alex Bodi, Josip Heit, Harald Seiz, Caran Clan, and others have either gone to jail or are being investigated in various criminal cases, although they were ALL involved in the same activities.
I wonder how many times Ovidiu Toma has been on holidays in Greece, for example, together with the Coldea family.
I wonder why meetings take place in the middle of the night between Florian Coldea, Bogdan Maruntis, Ovidiu Toma and Dumitru Cocoru, exactly in the CryptoDATA headquarters.
And finally, I wonder how this company, without any experience in the field and with a long history of dubious activities, got to deal, in 2021, for millions of euros, with the cyber infrastructure of research institutes in Romania.
translated by: Oana-Medeea Groza
