2015-03-17 08:50:00

Romania detains anti-corruption official on fraud


(Vatican Radio)-- Romanian prosecutors have detained an anti-corruption official on suspicion of corruption costing the state tens of millions of dollars. His arrest comes shortly after a mayor was detained and a finance minister resigned over similar allegations as part of an apparent crackdown on financial wrongdoing in what is one of the poorest European Union member states.  

 

Romanian officials say they questioned and detained Horia Georgescu on Monday on charges of  inflating property prices, causing Romania some 75 million euros ($80 million) in damages.

 

In 2008-2009 he allegedly overvalued property that was being restituted to former owners who lost it when Communists nationalized real estate. It allegedly happened while Georgescu was on the board of a state institute tasked with compensating for, or returning, lost assets. 

 

Ironically he now heads the National Integrity Agency. That agency checks the assets of public officials and rules on conflict of interest and compatibility issues. He has denied wrongdoing. 

 

His detention came just hours after the mayor of the Black Sea port of Constanta was detained for allegedly taking nearly 10 million dollars in bribes.

 

MILLIONS IN BRIBES

 

Over the last decade, Mayor Radu Mazare allegedly received over $2.1 million in exchange for handing out permits to two companies. He is also believed to have taken more than $7.1 million in bribes from another businessman in exchange for contracts to refurbish the city. 

 

Mazare, who once dressed in a World War II German army uniform with a swastika, said he was "prepared for anything." 

 

The detentions come amid a crackdown on government corruption. On Sunday Finance Minister Darius Valcov resigned after prosecutors charged him with taking over $2.1 million in bribes when he was a mayor. He also denies wrongdoing. 

In recent years, two former Romanian agriculture ministers were convicted on corruption and sentenced to several years in prison, just after former Prime Minister Adrian Nastase was jailed on a similar conviction. 

Romania, which joined the European Union in 2007, has come under EU pressure to tackle corruption more seriously than it has done in the past. Government graft has lead to a public outcry as many people struggle to survive in nowadays Romania, which shrugged off decades of Communist dictatorship in a bloody revolution in 1989.    

Listen to Stefan Bos’ full report:








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