Sorin Blejnar, the former president of Romania’s tax agency ANAF, was held after being questioned for several hours at the National Anticorruption Department (DNA) office in Ploiesti on Monday. The court will decide on Tuesday if Blejnar will spend the next 30 days in arrest.

The prosecutors charged Blejnar with influence peddling. The former ANAF head allegedly received a bribe of RON 13 million (EUR 2.92 million) to use his influence and intervene in favor of an IT company to help it get a large public contract from ANAF, according to judicial sources.

The bribe represented 20% of the value of several public procurement contracts that ANAF was going to allocate. Blejnar split the money with subordinates who were in charge of the procurement process, according to DNA.

In early June this year, Sorin Blejnar was sentenced to five years in prison, no parole, for accessory to tax evasion and setting up an organized crime group. In the same case, local investors Radu and Diana Nemes, who coordinated the illegal activities, were also sentenced to nine years, respectively seven years in jail. The couple has been charged with tax evasion and money laundering.

Prosecutors say that they set up a network of companies which they used to illegally trade some 90,000 tons of diesel fuel without paying excises and VAT, thus causing a EUR 56 million damage to the state budget.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com