Hunter Biden, the son of former American President Joe Biden, was involved in the early stages of a transaction involving the land surrounding the United States Embassy in Bucharest.
The proposed transaction, the result of relationships cultivated during his father’s tenure as Vice President of the United States and involving a Chinese partner, highlights the extent of questionable business dealings carried out by Hunter Biden abroad, writes The New York Times.
Hunter Biden's business dealings in Romania began when his father was Vice President of the United States, but the land transaction did not materialize after Joe Biden left office.
Biden Jr. started developing relationships that led to a bold proposal to sell the land surrounding the United States Embassy in Romania to a group that included a Chinese company.
The business had high stakes. The pursued agreement left open the possibility for the Chinese side – the company CEFC China Energy – to hold a significant stake in the lands surrounding the US embassy or even in the land where the diplomatic mission is located.
Biden Jr. was the lawyer and advisor of Puiu Popoviciu
Hunter Biden had multiple roles in the proposed transaction, and he privately told an associate that the situation had become "an ethical quagmire," according to documents and accounts of four individuals cited by the American newspaper.
On one hand, Hunter Biden appeared in this transaction proposal as a businessman. He and his partners, including his uncle, James Biden, were shareholders in a company that was supposed to jointly own developed properties and undeveloped land around the embassy in Bucharest. They were joined by Gabriel (Puiu) Popoviciu, the wealthy businessman who had developed the area, as well as an influential Chinese company with ties to the Chinese state, which Hunter Biden courted.
On the other hand, Biden Jr. also had the role of legal advisor. During the negotiations, he worked separately as a lawyer and advisor for Puiu Popoviciu. His legal team was trying to obstruct a corruption case in Romania targeting the Romanian real estate developer.
Popoviciu had a problem, and Biden Jr. was trying to help him
This concerns the Băneasa case, in which Popoviciu was definitively sentenced in August 2017 to seven years in prison for complicity in abuse of office and bribery.
Popoviciu was accused of buying, in 2000, at an undervalued price from the University of Agricultural Sciences and attempting to bribe a DNA official. On that land, he built the Băneasa complex, with a mall, office spaces, and residences, and the US embassy moved to an area of over 4.5 hectares.
Popoviciu fled Romania and was internationally wanted, and the Bucharest Court of Appeal issued a European arrest warrant in his name. Earlier this year, Puiu Popoviciu, located in the UK, was definitively acquitted in this case.
Messages to Popoviciu
Hunter Biden was aware that he could no longer continue in the dual role he had in this business.
"It seems we have an interest from all possible points of view," he wrote in a WhatsApp message sent in May 2017 to one of his partners, a message analyzed by a New York Times reporter.
In the series of messages, Biden Jr. acknowledged that he might not be able to continue as Popoviciu's lawyer if he was part of the acquisition group.
The two roles "should be as separate and distant as possible to avoid the appearance of a clear conflict, something you can't easily resolve as a lawyer," he wrote.
Joe Biden condemns the "cancer of corruption" in Bucharest
All of this was happening while Joe Biden was pressuring Romanian authorities to rid the country of nepotism and corruption. There is no evidence that the former president was involved in business, although he was introduced by his son to the directors of the Chinese company, CEFC China Energy, in an apparent effort to impress them, according to NYT.
Joe Biden was proud of his track record as a global statesman, who attacked corruption as a threat to democracy and urged allied countries to investigate oligarchs who enriched themselves by siphoning off state assets.
In 2014, as dissatisfaction grew in Bucharest due to corruption scandals and austerity measures, Vice President Biden visited Romania. In a speech addressed to government officials and civil activists, he denounced corruption as "a cancer" and warned of the decline of society "when politicians can be bought, when courts can be manipulated."
His calls had an impact, as prosecutors in Romania and other allied countries received support and guidance from the US government.
Popoviciu's secret plan for Biden Jr.
In 2015, Hunter Biden, then a lawyer at the firm Boies Schiller Flexner, came to Bucharest with a colleague to discuss the Popoviciu case at the US embassy, with the new ambassador, Hans Klemm. American prosecutors later suggested that Popoviciu wanted Biden Jr. and his associates to persuade the Obama administration to pressure the Romanian authorities to drop the case.
However, Ambassador Klemm did not intervene in favor of Popoviciu, and the trial proceeded.
Failing to change the course of the trial, Hunter and his partners devised another plan: to establish another joint venture, with Chinese investments between 300 and 500 million dollars, to own the lands around the US embassy. But the plan also included an offer to the Romanian state: 10% of the project was supposed to return to the government as "an annual constant income to the state budget."
In other words, the Romanian government could benefit financially if the case involving Popoviciu was dropped and the transaction was completed, writes NYT.
How it all went downhill
The land deal collapsed in 2017, before the Chinese side invested any money, amid a fierce struggle for control between Biden Jr.'s partners, during which he protested in a WhatsApp message: "I'm the one putting an entire family legacy at stake," he wrote.
The real estate joint venture was dissolved without any commercial effect. In testimony before Republican-controlled parliamentary committees investigating his foreign dealings, Hunter Biden stated that he severed ties with the joint venture because a partner "was using my family's name" without his consent.
Instead, this partner stated in his own testimony that he was "consciously and aggressively deceived" by Hunter and James Biden, accusing them of excluding him from their dealings with CEFC, according to the American newspaper.
Popoviciu gave one million dollars to Hunter Biden
Documents show that Biden Jr. was involved in discussions about the structure of the joint venture, as well as the proposed acquisition of the land in Bucharest and the legal defense of Popoviciu. In his messages to a client, he described Popoviciu as "a very good man, treated very badly by a suspicious Romanian judicial system."
Through another partner's company, Hunter Biden received approximately one million dollars from the Romanian businessman, including during the period when his father was Vice President of the United States, according to prosecutors and documents published by Republican members of Congress.
Biden Jr. also received millions of dollars from entities and individuals affiliated with the Chinese from CEFC.
The Chinese payments were at least partially intended to help identify other infrastructure investment opportunities. However, before any projects could be developed, CEFC collapsed, the company and its directors being investigated in China and the United States.
The company's president, whom Hunter Biden introduced to his father after he left the vice presidency in 2017, was detained by Chinese authorities in 2018 and has not been heard from since.
What happened next
Criticized by authorities in the United States and China, CEFC shifted its focus to cultivating Donald Trump's entourage, as the Department of Justice investigated Hunter Biden's foreign dealings.
This business followed the Biden family throughout Joe Biden's presidency. Then, as he prepared to leave office, the president pardoned his son in December 2024 for tax convictions and firearm offenses, as well as for any crimes he might have committed since he began conducting business abroad, including his criticized activity on the board of a Ukrainian energy company. James Biden and other family members also received preemptive pardons, despite not being accused of any crimes.
T.D.