The group of 288 men who came through the arrivals gate at Bucharest Henri Coanda International Airport on the evening of February 1 looked nothing like combatants. With an air of defeat and possibly even humiliation, they walked past waiting journalists to their families, who greeted them warmly.

After a swift round of international negotiations, these Romanian citizens had been flown out of the conflict zone around the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

They arrived at "Military Airbase 90" near the civilian airport in the Romanian capital on a chartered Airbus.

Each one passed through a number of checks — including what was referred to as an "epidemiological filter" — and were also interviewed by the Romanian security and secret services before entering the airport's arrival hall.

They all belonged to a group of mercenaries run by Horatiu Potra.

Seen as Romania's Yevgeny Prigozhin

Potra, a 55-year-old Romanian citizen, came to prominence both inside and outside Romania in early 2023, among other things as a result of investigations conducted by a number of international media outlets.

He is seen by many as Romania's version of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Russian founder of the private militia Wagner Group who led a brief uprising in Russia in 2023.

Potra has been many things since the early 1990s. The list includes a member of the French Foreign Legion, a bodyguard, security contractor, military trainer and leader of groups of mercenaries in Africa and the Arab world.

In late 2024, Potra made the headlines in his native Romania as a result of his close links to Calin Georgescu, the far-right extremist who won the first round of the country's presidential election.

Romanian authorities initially alleged that Potra and Georgescu were planning a coup. Now, more and more of his dubious activities are coming to light.

Romanians active in Congo

Many of Potra's men were captured by the Tutsi-led Congolese militia known as M23 during the ongoing military conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

There are numerous videos on social media showing them being transferred from the eastern Congolese city of Goma to Rwanda.

Their return to Romania was negotiated by a team working at a UN mission, with the Romanian Foreign Ministry also involved. A spokesperson for the ministry declined to provide DW with any details.

For quite some time, Potra's men were known in Congo as "the Russians."

The Congolese saw all white European soldiers as mercenaries working for the Russian Wagner Group, the private army founded by Prigozhin.

The Wagner Group was active in a number of African countries. Since Prigozhin's death in a plane crash in Russia in August 2023, most of the group has been integrated into the structures of the Russian army.

Trainer, bodyguard, security contractor — and mercenary leader

But Potra, who even bears a physical resemblance to Prigozhin, ran his own group of mercenaries known as RALF, an acronym for "Romanians who served in the French Foreign Legion."

Prior to this, he worked as a bodyguard for a variety of political and military leaders in the Middle East and Africa, as a trainer for special troops and guarded the gemstone and diamond mines of Romanian businesspeople in African countries, including the Romanian-Australian mining billionaire Vasile Frank Timis.

According to an article published on the investigative website PressOne in December, Potra began recruiting Romanian mercenaries for Congo in 2022.

The first group of these mercenaries, known as "Romeos," which was made up of just under 100 men, was tasked with protecting the airport in the Congolese capital, Kinshasa, and training with government troops.

Some of them had, like Potra, been members of the French Foreign Legion. According to PressOne, however, he also recruited members of Romania's state security services and ministries, offering them a far better income than what they were getting back home.

Links to Russian Embassy in Romania

Potra had already had a brush with the Romanian judiciary long before he became known to a wider public.

Romania's Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) and other authorities investigated Potra in 2010/11 on suspicion of drug trafficking and gunrunning. He was, however, only found guilty of illegal possession of firearms.

So far, no evidence of links between Potra and the Wagner Group has been found. According to the Berlin daily newspaper taz, however, Potra is said to have received payment from Moscow in 2016 to train bodyguards for Faustin-Archange Touadera, who was elected president of the Central African Republic that year.

Potra himself makes no secret of his good relations with the Russian Embassy in Bucharest. He can be seen on several photos of events that took place at the embassy — even after Russia began its all-out war against Ukraine in February 2022.

Potra under investigation

In early December, Potra was arrested while driving to Bucharest. Officers found knives, other weapons, radio equipment and a telescope in the trunk of the car.

Authorities have alleged he was traveling to the Romanian capital to cause unrest after the annulment of the election just two days previously.

Potra has been under investigation in Romania ever since. He was, however, released from custody on condition that he reports to the police.

Since his release, Potra has made a series of bizarre and incoherent statements, including one to the effect that as long as senior police officers were arresting people like him and not the "servants of globalism" who rule Romania, nothing in the country will change and "our children will have to go to war in Ukraine."

He also directed his ire against President Klaus Iohannis, a former physics teacher who stood down as Romania's head of state on Wednesday, saying he had come to Bucharest to "make the physics teacher re-sit a mechanics test that he had failed."

This article was originally written in German and adapted by Aingeal Flanagan.