Mihai Constantinescu – Polish child rapist (Image: Picture Desk)
A Romanian man is facing extradition to serve a prison sentence for blackmailing two teenage girls to have sex with numerous men. Mihai Constantinescu, 34, has been living in Britain illegally for the past nine years despite the Home Office being aware of his crimes.
During this time he has avoided deportation despite twice lying on application forms to settle in this country. He is wanted back in Romania to serve a three-year jail term for a string of crimes, including trafficking minors, child pornography and blackmail.
District Judge John Zani ordered his extradition last month but his lawyers have applied for permission to appeal the ruling at the High Court. His case is the latest to highlight successive governments failures to deport many dangerous foreign criminals. Last week the Sunday Express revealed convicted Polish rapist Krystian Debinski, 44, was allowed back into Britain despite facing a four year and eight months prison sentence for raping a 14-year-old girl in his homeland.
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The Pole had also been recommended for deportation after being jailed for seven years for burglary by an Old Bailey judge when previously living here. Constantinescu is also wanted for sex crimes. In 2010, he recruited two teenage girls, aged 16 and 17, for the vice trade in his home city of Ialomita
He filmed them having sex with him as well as other men who paid him. To ensure the teenagers kept working for him, he threatened to show the phone videos to their parents. Constantinescu, who was 19 at the time, first arrived in Britain a year later but was sent back to Romania to face trial for his crimes in 2013.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges, claiming one of his victims was his “girlfriend” and had agreed to making a sex video. After being found guilty he was handed a suspended three-year prison sentence at the Ialomita Courthouse in 2014. His jail term was triggered two years later when he breached the terms of his probation by travelling to Britain to be with his wife and then five-year-old eldest son, who was reportedly sick in hospital.
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Home Office records show he was refused entry by UK immigration officers at the French port of Calais in March 2016 after his crimes were flagged at the border. But he managed to illegally enter Britain the same year and has been living here ever since.
Immigration officials say they had no knowledge Constantinescu was in Britain until October 2017, when they visited him in Wandsworth Prison, south London, where he was being detained while facing removal for his crimes in Romania. He was released a month later after his extradition case collapsed because the Romanian authorities failed to provide “appropriate” assurances about jail conditions in the country.
Despite being eligible for deportation as an illegal migrant, Constantinescu remained in Britain and in December 2020 even made an application to the Home Office to continue to live here under the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS). However, his application was rejected “due to insufficient evidence provided.” He was also found to have provided a fake document and falsely claimed on his form that he had no criminal convictions.
Police finally issued him with a deportation notice in April last year, but Constantinescu immediately submitted a fresh EUSS application on the basis his family had indefinite leave to remain here. This was also rejected after it was again found that he had again provided fake papers and lied on his form that he had no criminal past.
His wife has had two more children since he returned to Britain, and has received child benefit and Universal Credit to help with the family’s living costs. According to court documents, between 2017 and 2024, the Romanian authorities made “repeated attempts to enforce the EAW (European Arrest Warrant)”.
In July last year, Constantinescu was arrested by officers from the National Extradition Unit after a further warrant was issued by the Romanian authorities for his extradition. He was released on bail days later while battling against his removal.
During his extradition hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court, Constantinescu said his crimes in Romania were a “big mistake”, stating “I now feel very bad about my offending.” He told the court: “I agree that I was refused entry from France to the UK. I made (an) application for Settled Status in 2020.
“I did not inform them that I had been convicted of the criminal offences that I had been convicted of in Romania as I thought that the question on the form only related to the UK”. He is currently on £5,000 bail and must wear an electronic tag and report to his local police station weekly while his lawyers prepare his appeal.
