On November 24, 2024, Călin Georgescu, 62, unexpectedly won the first round of Romania’s presidential election.
Not a single poll predicted his victory.
The mysterious Georgescu captured voters’ attention through a digital media avalanche that hit in the days before the election.
His campaign relied entirely on social media, with seemingly astonishing grassroots support.
He gained support by declaring that he spent no money—zero—on his political campaign.
Promoted as a UN diplomat and member of the influential Club of Rome, Georgescu’s campaign presented him as a fearless UN whistleblower who fought against a network of oligarch pedophiles controlling world affairs.
Across platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, pro-Georgescu content flooded timelines, amassing millions of views overnight.
Georgescu emerged as the front-runner in a crowded field, earning 22.9% of the vote. His closest competitors, well known politicians Elena Lasconi and Marcel Ciolacu, trailed closely at 19.17% and 19.15% respectively.
Because no candidate achieved the required majority of more than 50%, a runoff between Georgescu and Lasconi was scheduled for December 8.
Two days before the second round of voting, the Romanian Constitutional Court annulled the presidential election.
The court’s decision was based on Romanian Interior Ministry intelligence reports that Russian interference and AI-driven manipulation deceived the public and violated campaign laws.
Romanian intelligence provided a dossier revealing the campaign deployed AI tools and cyber warfare tactics to orchestrate a “fake grassroots” movement
A new Romanian election is scheduled for May 4, 2025; the Court barred Georgescu from running.
On February 14, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance delivered a speech at the Munich Security Conference, criticizing Romania’s decision.
Vance declared, “This December, Romania straight up cancelled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbors.” He compared the allegations of Russian Interference to minor infractions, adding, “If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.”
The Complexity of Vance’s Position
Vance’s comments were curious because Georgescu’s political campaign was based on giving lip service to Trump but promoting a platform which if adopted would be inimical to American interests.
Moreover, Georgescu’s handler, mentor, resume builder and financier, Roland Schatz, is a critic of Trump.
Schatz endorsed Kamala Harris during her 2020 presidential run and lambasted the international media for coddling Trump.
“The degree to which American politics has been damaged since [Trump]… is much greater than even it was under George W. Bush,” said Schatz.
Schatz, an Austrian, referred to Trump in a LinkedIn post as “a guy who got kicked out 4 years ago with the lowest job approval rate since Jimmy Carter.”
Vance may not have known this since Georgescu publicly praised Trump, aligning himself with the “America First” ideology, which he mirrored in his “Romania First” rhetoric.
He described Trump as a leader who “loves his people” and admired his nationalist policies.
He also said Vladimir Putin is a leader who “loves his people while promoting anti-Western narratives.
Russian Interference
Regardless of the praise, Romanian intelligence has disputed Vance’s assertion that the interference was nothing more than a negligible social media advertising campaign.
In this analysis they were supported by a coalition of international partners, including NATO, the UK, Canada, Ukraine, Estonia, and the European Commission, which deployed Osavul, an AI-powered information threat detection tool, to analyze Georgesecu’s online campaign.
Osavul identified that over 85% of Georgescu’s online campaign content originated from fake profiles, bots, and AI-generated videos—manipulating social media algorithms to amplify pro-Georgescu narratives.
Between 2022 and 2023, a network of 20,321 fake accounts emerged to engage in online discourse in favor of Georgescu.
These accounts flooded social media platforms with over 2.1 million pro-Georgescu comments starting on November 23, 2024, just a day before the first round of voting.
The network’s operations were traced back to Russian email domains like rambler.ru, and naming templates for fake profiles followed a uniform structure, such as “ushakov.” or “aleksandrov.” with random alphanumeric sequences.
Fake ‘UN Whistleblower’ Narrative
From October 13 to November 6, 2024, Georgescu claim that he was a United Nations whistleblower fighting an “international pedophile ring” circulated across multiple platforms emerged.
Posts sharing this narrative were identical word-for-word and distributed by 10 Russian-linked X accounts, accumulating over 103,000 reactions.
Data analysis showed that these 100,000 plus reactions did not represent real user engagement, as the post had been viewed only three times before being artificially boosted.
The TikTok campaign promoting Georgescu, also included 25,000 fake TikTok pro-Georgescu accounts becoming active shortly before the election.
Surge in Daily Activity
On November 1, 2024, the daily pro-Georgescu posts generated by fake accounts skyrocketed to 1,100 per day, compared to fewer than 100 posts daily in the preceding weeks—a growth driven entirely by artificial amplification and bot accounts.
Beyond comment flooding, these fake accounts engaged in controlled Facebook groups with fake members that positioned Georgescu as a grassroots-independent voice with widespread public support.
Investigators demonstrated that the profile pictures attached to these fake accounts were from Russian platforms lok.ru, mamba.ru, and ru.pinterest.
The images used for the fake profiles were from Russian websites (ok.ru, mamba.ru, ru.pinterest, ozon.ru).
Osavul’s analysis extended beyond social media manipulation, uncovering 85,000 cyberattacks, traced back to Russian state actors, struck at Romania’s digital election infrastructure during the campaign.
These attacks ranged from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) operations aimed at disrupting voter registration systems to malware infiltrations designed to compromise critical election data.
The Kremlin’s Hand in the Campaign
Investigations uncovered that it was not exclusively AI. There were humans involved.
Editors at pravda-en.com and pravda-es.com published pro-Georgescu content.
The content creators at Telegram channel “IrinamarZ,” a Russian network, lauded Georgescu.
Romanian Georgiana Arsene, administrator of the Facebook group “Friends of Vladimir Putin,” produced content amplifying Georgescu role on social media.
Editors at pro-Russian channels such as Țarigrad TV, Naspravdi, and KP.MD, provided content.
Romanian Bogdan Peschir bother produced content and was the conduit of money, some of it in cyrtpo currency, “donating” $1 million for Georgescu’s campaign on TikTok, along with additional payments to 100 influencers to post in favor of Georgescu.
Other influential supporters of Georgescu include:
- Alexey Komov of the World Congress of Families a Kremlin-backed organization designed to infiltrate conservative networks in the U.S. and Europe and Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev.
- Petre Racanel, a former Romanian diplomat turned pro-Kremlin operative.
- Ilan Sor, a Moldovan fugitive in Moscow
- Igor Dodon, a pro-Kremlin Moldovan politician
- Horatiu Potra, a Russian intelligence operative, and mercenary with African military operations aligned with former ambassador Valeri Kuzmin;
- Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov who generously lent his bodyguard Adrian Mandea to protect Georgescu
- The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency through Constantin Bogdan Vacusta of “The Young Crows”
One of the most important campaign supporters was Elena Shmeleva co-manager of Vladimir Putin’s 2018 presidential campaign, who partnered with Schatz in the Russian formed LLC Media Tenor established to collect data on the impact of media (including social media) on the population in Eastern Europe.
Georgescu’s campaign headquarters in Izvorani—in two identical villas totaling over 2,000 square meters—are owned by Russian cut out Andy Lupu, a 24-year-old leader of the LEU party.
But the man said to have invented Georgescu, Roland Schatz did much to bring the shadowy Georgescun on the world stage.
Georgescu was affiliated with Schatz’s sound-alike United Nations Global Sustainable Index Institute (UNG), an entity with no ties to the UN.
Schatz gave Georgescu the title of director of the UNGSII foundation from July 9, 2016, to December 14, 2016.
Georgescu duly wrote in his CV that he was executive director and special advisor to the director general of the UN office in Geneva.
Actually, he was only executive director of Schatz’s fake United Nations Global Sustainable Index Institute,
Similarly, he never held an official membership in the Club of Rome, as he claimed.
He was instead associated with the sound-alike Friends of the Club of Rome Romania, a group not affiliated with the Club of Rome.
Georgescu also said he was a secretary for Mircea Maliț, of the Black Sea University Foundation.
Malița’s daughter says that Georgescu is lying when he claims that he was the academician’s secretary though the two knew each other.
The relationship between the two broke up permanently after Georgescu stole 3,000 business cards from the Black Sea University Foundation and never brought them back
Romanian historian Matei Udrea said, “Călin Georgescu never worked for the UN, was never part of the Club of Rome, and was never endorsed by Mircea Malița. Fake, fake, fake. His entire biography is a fabrication.”
Schatz who architected Georgescu’s presidential resume was convicted of embezzlement, bankruptcy fraud, stealing employees’ social security and pension contributions and false statements in Bonn, Germany.
In July 2010, Schatz was given a suspended sentence of 22 months.
After Romania cancelled the election, Schatz published an article through Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which is part of Tenor Media framing Georgescu as a victim rather than a Kremlin-backed operative and announcing that Georgescu is likely to be arrested. Reports indicate that Schatz is keeping distant from Romania out of fear for his own arrest.
