Romanian police raid NIS Petrol offices

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The Romanian police raided the offices of the Serbian NIS Petrol company as part of an espionage investigation, Romanian media reported on Monday.

The reports said that NIS Petrol offices in Bucharest and Timisoara were raided as were the homes of company employees. The raids were carried out by the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT).

NIS (Serbian Oil Industry) Petrol is a subsidiary of the Russian Gazprom.

President Aleksandar Vucic said that the raids did not have anything to do with Serbia and added that he would request information from the Romanian authorities.

Sources quoted by Romanian media outlets said the police were acting on information that classified reports on the country’s gas and oil deposits were passed to a foreign secret service. Media reports said that NIS Petrol was under obligation to notify the Romanian authorities of all discoveries but failed to do so and sensitive information about deposits in the west of Romania were sent to the NIS headquarters in Belgrade.

Romanian media recalled that a Serbian geologist working for NIS Petrol tried to take data on oil and gas deposits out of the country in 2014.

The Serbian company has concessions to exploit oil and gas at six locations.