On Saturday, $7 million were reportedly seized from the home of a crypto entrepreneur in Romania, during a high-profile investigation into financing election fraud.

36-year-old Bogdan Peșchir is best known by his TikTok handle “bogpr” for handing out bundles of cash to fellow creators. However, Peschir has made headlines for allegedly sending $381,000 to various TikTok accounts that have relentlessly promoted Romania’s surprise presidential front-runner, Călin Georgescu.

Far-right, pro-Russian independent Georgescu abruptly appeared on Romania’s political stage just weeks before the first voting round in late November. About 25,000 TikTok accounts with a combined following of 8 million were suddenly dedicated to promoting this obscure, anti-NATO engineer.

Weeks later, over 9.4 million Romanians cast their first ballots; Georgescu shocked the nation when he came out on top.

His sudden popularity has been categorized as Russian interference by Romania’s president Klaus Iohannis, who together with the US believes Georgescu unlawfully gained electoral coverage when campaigning wasn’t allowed. As a result, Romania has halted the second round of voting and has launched a full-scale investigation into election fraud.

The hunt has led to Peșchir, who’s suspected of spending €1 million ($1.05 million) financing Georgescu’s campaign with criminal, money-laundered funds.

Romania’s Supreme Council of National Defense has released records that say between October 24 and November 24, Peșchir “made payments worth $381,000 […] to users of some TikTok accounts involved in promoting [Georgescu], including after the end of the electoral campaign.” This would be in violation of Romanian law.

However, Peșchir insists his donations were independent and not tied to any agreements. He emphasized his support for Georgescu was voluntary and accused the media of harassment — even threatening to sue.

Read more: Romanian Hells Angels leader used bitcoin for drugs and murder, Texas jury finds

Only, the TikToker’s ties to cryptocurrency have raised further questions. His business dealings include associations with BitXATM, a Romanian crypto ATM firm that suffered a theft scandal in 2016. Its founder, Gabrial Prodanescu, accused a former employee of the crime. Peșchir later testified at the trial, which ended in the man’s conviction.

BitXATM stopped updating its website and several users claimed they lost their funds. Prodanescu then opened another crypto firm in the UK under the same name, along with an extra called Globaya LTD. Peșchir is listed as an employee of Globaya.

Authorities are also concerned that Peșchir’s declared income is inconsistent with his luxurious lifestyle, which includes driving a Porsche and a BMW. The TikToker denies this, saying “I have income from other sources, completely legal, that are declared and taxed.”

As for the accusations of financing Georgescu’s controversial rise, he maintains that he did nothing wrong. “I don’t even know [Georgescu] personally,” Peșchir said, “and I don’t feel that endorsing a cause that I support is unethical.”

“The attacks on the system […] motivate me even more to support Călin Georgescu,” he added.

The Kremlin denies interfering in Romania’s elections, classifying it as an “unprecedented outburst of anti-Russian hysteria.”

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More than 100 Romanian hospitals were taken offline this month after a ransomware group attacked their IT systems, encrypted data, and demanded a bitcoin ransom worth $174,000, according to the country’s National Cyber Security Directorate (DNSC).

The DNSC revealed that 25 hospitals using the Hipocrate Information System (HIS) have been directly impacted, while computers in another 79 have been taken offline as authorities figure out the scale of the attack.

Read more: Bitcoin ransomware gang claims to have hacked major UK water provider

The Romanian security agency claims it doesn’t know who attacked the system, but says the ‘Backmydata’ ransomware application, a variant of Phobos ransomware, was used to encrypt data from the affected hospitals.

The DNSC said, “Both the Directorate and other cyber security authorities involved in the analysis of this incident RECOMMEND that the attackers are NOT contacted and the requested ransom is not paid!”

Romanian hospitals have been told to keep tabs on any ransom demands from the attackers, not to shut down the systems to ensure evidence is preserved and to perform a system cleanup before restoring systems using secure, up-to-date backups. 

The DNSC added that there’s “no indication” that any data has been stolen.

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Controversial former world kickboxing champion and social media influencer Andrew Tate could see an estimated $560,000 in crypto seized by Romanian authorities after he was formally indicted on rape and trafficking charges.

Tate was arrested in Romania in December and remained in jail and under house arrest while under investigation. However, as detailed in a press release issued on Tuesday by the country’s Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism, he has now been officially charged.

Following this development, prosecutors have requested to seize assets and funds, including 15 high-end cars, 15 properties, a number of watches, and 21 bitcoin. It was initially reported that police had seized somewhere in the region of $380 million worth of bitcoin, but this turned out to be an error caused by a misunderstanding with Google Translate.

As reported by the BBC, Tate’s brother Tristan and two other associates have also been indicted on the same charges. The gang is accused of luring women into a sex work operation using fake promises of marriage.

Victims were allegedly “placed under constant surveillance,” forced into debt, and made to create pornographic material that would subsequently be shared online. One of the gang is also accused of two counts of rape in March 2022.

The Tate’s media team said, “While this news is undoubtedly predictable, we embrace the opportunity it presents to demonstrate their innocence and vindicate their reputation,” (via BBC).

A judge now has 60 days to consider the evidence and the trial is expected to last a number of years.

Tate has held more than just bitcoin

Back in May, Tate was forced to deny that he was hyping shitcoins. The disgraced kickboxer tweeted a ticker for a crypto token that launched just 15 minutes later.

The token, which boasted the ticker ‘SLUTS,’ initially pumped but quickly shed 99% of its value with Tate denying that he’d pumped the coin, instead claiming that he was “only joking.”

Read more: Why was crypto so quick to embrace Andrew Tate?

To make his stance even clearer, Tate then tweeted a video saying he doesn’t endorse shitcoin s and never will, however, this rang slightly hollow given that, back in 2021, he heavily hyped a dog meme token called Floki Inu.

Tate hyped Floki in late 2021, tweeting that he’d bought $100,000 of the currency and then replying with “Lets (sic) go Vikings, unlimited money awaits us in Valhalla.”

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