Ex-ANAF head Sorin Blejnar indicted for influence peddling in the RON 13 M bribe case

Former head of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) Sorin Blejnar, charged with influence peddling for allegedly receiving RON 13 M as bribe, was indicted on Friday.

The anti-corruption prosecutors claim that in 2011 defendant Sorin Blejnar, as ANAF head, accepted a businessman’s promise to receive 20% of the value of a contract that was to be closed with the tax revenue body.

“The money were to be given to Blejnar and he was to exert his influence on one of his subordinates so that the contract should be assigned to that businessman’s company. Under these circumstances during November 2011-January 2012 Sorin Blejnar and the other employee involved in this action have received a total sum of RON 13,172,520 through a “ghost” company controlled by themselves,” the DNA says.

The businessman was Horaţiu Berdilă, Romsys CEO, and Blejnar was to intervene upon the ANAF procurement director Dan Stroe to conclude an IT service contract with the company. The money allegedly represented 20% of the contract.

Prosecutors also inform that Blejnar took RON 12,513,894 from the total sum.

Investigators have seized the ex-ANAF head’s assets, including several buildings.

The file was sent to trial to the Bucharest Tribunal, with the proposal to maintain preventive measures and seizures against the defendant.

Sorin Blejnar, former head of the National Agency for Fiscal Administration (ANAF) has been remanded for 30 days in early November after the Prahova Tribunal had ruled preventive arrest against him in the bribe case related to an IT company.

Sorin Blejnar was sentenced in first court to five years imprisonment in a file in which he is charged, together with spouses Radu and Diana Nemes for complicity to tax evasion with petroleum products and with setting up an organised criminal group.