"Société Générale plundered in Romania" Romanian newspaper Adevarul headlined on February 6. An employee of the newspaper was said to have transferred the equivalent of around 2.2 million euro to bank accounts of her friends.

Romanian police arrested on February 5 Mihaela Biţu on the accusation of illegally transferring more than 2 million euro from the company accounts of CEZ Oltenia to her friends in Bucharest and Timishoara, Dnevnik daily said.

Using the password of the head of the branch office where she worked, Biţu made the transfers on February 1.

Half of money she transferred was on the bank account of Turkish Osman Tunc, who was arrested when he tried to draw the money from the bank in Bucharest. The other half had been transferred to the account of Doru Meosu in Timishoara, who managed to draw 1.5 million lei (406 162 euro), but was arrested later, Dnevnik quoted Adevarul as saying.

Police told Adevarul they expected more people to be involved and would continue the investigation.

French "Société Générale announced on January 24 that a rogue lone trader had made unauthorised bets on stock markets, causing an estimated 4.9 billion euro in losses. A day later, Bulgarian branch Société Générale Expressbank issued a statement saying that fraud case which had been uncovered in France would not affect the results of the Bulgarian bank.