Two months after Ilie Bolojan's government fell, a private jet left Bucharest-Băneasa airport for Mykonos, a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, on 8 July 2026 carrying, according to a leaked passenger list and the participants' own statements, a Constitutional Court judge, the president of a regional court, the chairman of the Senate energy committee, a former prime minister, executives of two state-controlled companies and several businessmen. It brought them back the same day. The Romanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCIR), which paid for the flight, says the delegation met potential US investors interested in putting more than €100 million into manufacturing in Romania, in energy, railways and agricultural equipment. It has not named the investors, their companies or the place on the island where they met.
Mihai Daraban, the CCIR president who organised the trip, said on 14 September that "some US investors were on Mykonos for that short period". He said he would not identify them, citing what had happened in Romania to "the Exxon and Chevron brand". Victor Ponta, the former prime minister who was on the flight, said on 9 September that he had travelled "with people who want to invest in Romania". Asked when he would name them, he said: "Once there is a government."
The flight
Toyo Aviation, a Bucharest charter company controlled by the businessman Tarek El Feki, operated the flight. Bucharest Airports listed three flights from Băneasa to Mykonos on 8 July, including one under Toyo's TOY416 call sign, and said it could not confirm which aircraft carried the group. The company's fleet includes an Embraer Legacy 600 registered YR-TRO, the type reported for the trip; no published record ties that registration to the flight.
The trip became public on 7 September, when a hacker calling himself "herttay" released what he said was Toyo Aviation's passenger database, containing about 2,600 identity documents. The database listed 13 names for the Mykonos flight. Daraban said the group stayed "between four and five hours" and later said they had "a four-hour window", with "no accommodation, no time on the beach". CCIR said the flight was paid from its "own revenues" and that the charter price is charged per flight hour, whatever the number of passengers. Daraban said he could not give the cost because CCIR had a block of flight hours "contracted since last year". Estimates published since range from more than €20,000 to about €50,000.
Who was on board
Mihai Daraban has led CCIR since 2014 and organised the flight. The passenger list also names Gabriel Daraban as commercial director of Oil Terminal, the state-controlled oil storage and loading operator in the port of Constanța. A Gabriel Daraban is Mihai Daraban's brother and co-owner with him of Global Defense Logistics, a company that anti-corruption prosecutors began investigating in 2025 over contracts at the Mihail Kogălniceanu air base used by US forces; it has not been confirmed that the passenger and the brother are the same person, and no charges against Mihai Daraban have been reported.
István-Loránt Antal, a senator for the Hungarian minority party UDMR, chairs the Senate energy committee. He said the trip was "an event organised by the Romanian Chamber of Commerce" and that he was invited for discussions on energy regulation and investment prospects. Kelemen Hunor, the UDMR leader, said Antal had no business being on the plane and had no mandate from the party.
Gruia Stoica owns Grampet, Romania's largest private rail freight and wagon-building group. He has acknowledged making the trip. Bogdan Mîndrescu is chief executive of Bucharest Airports, the state company that operates Băneasa and Otopeni airports.
Cristian Deliorga is a judge of the Constitutional Court. Daraban said: "He is my friend of 30 years." Deliorga said the trip "had a strictly private character" and that no Constitutional Court case was discussed. He did not appear at a Senate committee hearing on the flights on 22 September. Marius Cătălin Croitoru is president of the Constanța Tribunal and has not commented.
Florin Cârstocea and Ion Virgil Lixandru are Constanța businessmen. Cârstocea's companies include Grup Petrol Marin and Rig Service; Lixandru controls the Euro Vial group. Cârstocea said the delegation was "a heterogeneous gathering".
Petre-Florin Manole, a PSD deputy and former minister, said the trip was "organised and paid for" by CCIR and later said he went to discuss labour law. Ponta, expelled from the PSD in March 2025, first told reporters on 7 and 8 September that he did not remember the trip and then confirmed on 9 September that he had gone. Ovidiu Silaghi, a former transport minister, has not commented. Nicolae Bănicioiu, a former health minister whose name appears on the leaked list, said he did not travel: "I couldn't go, for personal reasons." Mîndrescu, Silaghi, Croitoru and Lixandru appear on the list and have not commented, and their presence on the flight has not been confirmed by them or by CCIR.
The judges
Companies linked to Cârstocea and Lixandru have cases before the Constanța Tribunal, the court Croitoru heads. Nordis filed in December 2024 at that tribunal for the insolvency of Euro Vial Residence, one of Lixandru's companies. The Judicial Inspection opened checks on Croitoru on its own initiative on 8 September into "a possible breach of the rules of conduct". It has published no finding. No evidence has been published that Croitoru intervened in any case involving his fellow passengers, and the Judicial Inspection has not accused him of doing so.
Deliorga voted in Constitutional Court rulings that went in Daraban's favour, on the Romexpo exhibition land and on Daraban's additional term at CCIR, according to reports on the court's decisions. Daraban said the rulings would have been the same "regardless of Mr Deliorga's vote". The Judicial Inspection does not oversee Constitutional Court judges, and the court has not commented as an institution. Sorin Grindeanu, the PSD leader, said the passengers "did not talk about Constitutional Court decisions".
The Senate's constitutional affairs committee, chaired by Nadia Cerva, is investigating the Mykonos flight and a second private flight to Nice on which Deliorga also travelled. The Senate gave the committee 30 more days to report in mid-September. Complaints about the flight have also been filed with the anti-corruption prosecutors and the National Integrity Agency.
The energy dispute before the flight
Kimberly Guilfoyle, the US ambassador to Greece, dined at the Isoletta restaurant in Bucharest on 31 March with Grindeanu, the then energy minister Bogdan Ivan and Florin Vlădică, an adviser to President Nicușor Dan. Grindeanu said they discussed Romania's transit role in the Vertical Gas Corridor, which is designed to carry US liquefied natural gas from Greece north to Ukraine. Romania's foreign minister, Oana Țoiu, said on 28 September that Guilfoyle's visit was a private business event outside any official mandate.
Ivan had written to Dan and Bolojan on 16 January asking for a state agreement to buy US LNG through the Romanian trader Nova Power & Gas, the Romanian partner of Atlantic-SEE LNG Trade. Aktor, a Greek construction group, owns 60 per cent of Atlantic-SEE and the Greek state-backed DEPA Commercial owns 40 per cent. Aktor's registered US lobbyist, Christos Marafatsos, has accompanied Guilfoyle to meetings with foreign officials, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation published on 25 September. Romgaz, the state gas producer, had rejected a 20-year Atlantic-SEE contract in December 2025, estimating losses of up to €310 million a year, and Bolojan's government withheld the mandate Ivan sought.
The PSD left Bolojan's coalition on 25 April, filed a no-confidence motion with the far-right AUR on 28 April and brought the government down on 5 May. A PSD-backed government under Adrian Veștea failed its confirmation vote on 22 June. The earlier reporting found no evidence that the United States ordered Bolojan's removal, that any politician was paid or that the LNG dispute caused the vote. The Mykonos flight took place 16 days after the Veștea vote.
Overlaps with the gas dispute
Daraban named three sectors of interest for the investors he says the delegation met: energy, railways and agricultural machinery. The passengers included the chairman of the Senate energy committee, the commercial director of a state oil terminal and the owner of Romania's largest private rail group.
Vlădică, the presidential adviser at the 31 March dinner, appears in the leaked Toyo Aviation database, which covers flights before and after his appointment. The presidency said that "since becoming an employee of the Presidential Administration, State Counsellor Florin Lazăr Vlădică has never used the services of Toyo Aviation". He was appointed on 18 March 2025. He is not named on the Mykonos passenger list.
Aktor owns land at Ano Mera on Mykonos, where it lists a €12 million, 95-room housing complex for seasonal workers among its projects. No other Aktor project on the island was found.
Aktor, its chief executive Alexandros Exarchou, Marafatsos and Guilfoyle do not appear in any published account of the 8 July trip. No published evidence shows that Aktor organised or attended the meeting, that Exarchou or Marafatsos was there, that Guilfoyle attended, that Atlantic-SEE took part, that the US investors represented Venture Global, the supplier in Atlantic-SEE's gas contracts, or that the meeting concerned the Vertical Gas Corridor. No reporting links the flight to Ivan or Nova Power & Gas. Manole is the only serving PSD figure on the list, and Grindeanu said it "would have been better" if Manole had not gone.
What has not been disclosed
- The names of the US investors and the companies they represent.
- Where on Mykonos the meeting took place and who else attended.
- Who chose the delegation, and why a Constitutional Court judge, a tribunal president and the head of the Senate energy committee were invited to an investment meeting.
- What projects were proposed and which of the 12 guests were expected to act on them.
- The cost of the flight and the terms of CCIR's contract with Toyo Aviation.
- Whether any memorandum, contract, lobbying contact, company registration or investment followed the meeting. CCIR has published none, and no investment in Romania has been announced as a result.
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