Romanian prosecutors have arrested the former head of an intelligence agency saying he used an upmarket wellness clinic as a cover for drug trafficking, Mediafax news agency reported.
Gelu Oltean, who was the chief of the interior ministry’s internal intelligence service, the Department for Intelligence and Internal Protection, until 2014, was arrested on Saturday with his girlfriend and a British citizen for 30 days on charges of complicity to traffic high-risk drugs.
She was identified as Vanessa Youness, who opened a wellness clinic north of Bucharest, and the third person was Thomas Lishmann.
Prosecutors say Oltean and Youness used Youness Clinic as a cover for people to take psychedelic drugs under the guise that they were part of a detox regime.
The case hit the headlines Sunday as clinic was promoted by Romanian TV personalities such as Teo Trandafir and Carmen Bruma.
Prosecutors said the three organized sessions at the clinic where people took DMT (Dimethyltryptamine), a powerful hallucinogenic and psychedelic drug which contains ayahuasca, which is illegal in most countries.
In an interview with daily Evenimentul Zilei in February, Oltean said ”Ayahuasca…. purifies the soul, mind and body and changes anyone, not just me. Not everyone has the courage to take it.“
Oltean headed DIPI from 2012 to July 2014 when he was dismissed by then-Premier Victor Ponta.
In August 2016, the National Anti-Corruption Directorate said it was investigating six former interior ministry employees including Oltean of embezzling funds, fraud, making false statements and abuse of office.
Prosecutors said that Oltean has embezzled 15,000 lei by falsely claiming expenses. In 2017, President Klaus Iohannis signed a decree dismissing him from the interior ministry.
