Prosecutors Confiscate $7 Million From Sponsor of TikTok Campaign for Pro-Russian Candidate in Romanian Elections

$7 million have been confiscated during searches from a Romanian citizen, Bogdan Peschir, whose account was used to pay for a TikTok campaign in favour of the pro-Russian candidate in the Romanian presidential election, Calin Georgescu. 

Agerpres reports this, citing officials from Romania's General Prosecutor's Office.

As a result of Saturday's searches at three Peschir facilities in Brasov, several computers and data storage devices were seized. Investigators used them to find USD 7 million in the man's account and confiscated it. 

After taking Peshchir's statement, it was decided not to keep him in custody and no other preventive measures were applied to him.  

Bogdan Peschir and his TikTok account ‘bogpr’ appear in the documents published by the secret service on how a large-scale TikTok campaign was carried out in favour of the odious far-right candidate, Calin Georgescu.

This account is believed to have been used to finance the campaign in favour of Georgescu. The candidate himself officially registered zero campaign expenses. 

As The Gaze previously reported, on 6 December, the Romanian Constitutional Court annulled the results of the first round of voting and decided that the entire electoral process should start anew. 

Despite the cancelled vote, Georgescu went to his polling station on Sunday and said that the decision of the Constitutional Court was ‘fatal for democracy’.