Romanian Fugitives Arrested in School of Enlightenment Town

Published: 25 March 2014

By OCCRP

FBI agents in Washington State have arrested Radu and Diana Nemeș, a Romanian couple accused of evading more than $65 million in taxes in their home country. American authorities say they will be extradited to face charges there.

Romanian prosecutors say the couple, along with Codruț Marta, a former high-ranking official of the Romanian fiscal authority, were involved in illegal oil manufacturing scheme.

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RiseProject, a Romanian partner with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, obtained an FBI file on the Nemeș, which details the couple’s unusual and lavish lifestyle. They equipped an Armageddon-prepped bunker in addition to a luxury villa, an arsenal of guns and participated in a cult-like spiritual school.

Behind their villa on their 6,000-square-foot property in Yelm, WA, authorities found a bunker reinforced with steel doors that could have supported them comfortably for months or even years.

When the couple asked the court to release them on bail, the attorneys for the US District Court noted that the bunker would still be available to them should they be released. Bail was denied.

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In a second residence, authorities found weapons, including an assault rifle, multiple pistols, a semiautomatic Glock, and ammunition enough to supply the arsenal.

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Authorities say the Nemeș paid for this with money stolen from Romania. They used a complicated network of companies in Dubai, the British Virgin Isles, Washington and Nevada states to transfer money and obscure their ownership.

Their American lawyers argued against their extradition, saying that Diana Nemes’ pregnancy would be jeopardized by a lengthy pre-determination incarceration.

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The couple appears to have been deeply involved in Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment an “academy of the mind” in Yelm. According to the group’s website, Ramtha the Enlightened One was a human who lived 35,000 years ago in an ancient place called Lemuria.

D4A former Ramtha member got involved with the Romanians in some of the companies they established in the US, but he was not charged with any crime. One of these companies is Magdalena Properties LLC, a firm used to buy a property in Washington state.

Court documents say the Romanians illegally concealed the source of the money used to buy property. Some of the money was transferred from Dubai to the US where it was changed into gold bars. FBI officers say some of the gold may still be hidden.

Contacted by Rise Project, Simina Kovacs, Ramtha’s contact person in Romania, said she never met either of the Nemes, She said that Ramtha is a spiritual school, and that most of the people involved in this lifestyle don’t have much money. She said that the Nemes lifestyle and money seemed very strange and fishy.

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