Profile
Geopol International is the operator of the all-news channel Realitatea Plus. Its main shareholders are Newsin Agency Press with a 99% stake and Alexandra-Beatrice Pacuraru Bertalan with 1% of the shares. Newsin Agency Press is 90% owned by another company, PHG International Security whose sole shareholder is Catalin-Paul Pacuraru Ionescu.
The key actor behind the whole operation is Maricel Pacuraru who is considered to be the real owner of Realitatea Plus. In official corporate documents, however, appear only family members (daughter, son and wife). Semnal Media, company controlled by PHG Media Invest, which is fully owned by Pacuraru’s wife, Daniela Madi Pacuraru, runs Realitatea FM radio station.
Maricel Pacuraru is a highly controversial figure in Romania. Convicted for fraud (a case involving the Romanian Post with €4m in damages), Pacuraru spent some years in prison before being released on parole in 2017. He was involved in many other scandals and has been having problems with the law from an early age.
Maricel Pacuraru and Cozmin Gusa (a politician from the Social Democratic Party, PSD) took over Realitatea TV from Sorin Ovidiu Vintu just before Vintu went to prison in 2010. In the years that followed, the National Anti-Corruption Directorate (DNA), Romania’s corruption watchdog, started an investigation into the takeover of Realitatea Media, the operator of the television channel at the time.
In a recent controversy scandal, Maricel Pacuraru is presented as having allegedly orchestrated a series of attempts at a hostile takeover of two other news outlets: Evenimentul Zilei, a news media outlet, and Capital.ro, a business news portal. Pacuraru used Realitatea Plus as a tool in an aggressive smear campaign against the current owner of those outlets he planned to take over. Pacuraru is also known for actively promoting Russian propaganda in Romania.In 2019, Realitatea Media was declared bankrupt with €27m in debts following eight years of insolvency. Nevertheless, the company kept its broadcasting license.
In July 2023, the Romanian media regulator approved the transfer of the broadcast license for the Realitatea Plus chain from Geopol International to PHG Media Invest, a company also controlled by the Pacuraru family. The transfer was reportedly aimed at protecting the broadcast license as the company Geopol International is faced with insolvency.
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