Sorin Blejnar, president of the National Tax Administration Agency – ANAF – appointed to office under the Liberal Democratic Party (PDL) “algorithm” has often been pointed at, in the media, as the “queen“ in the customs corruption scandal, and several PDL leaders have asked for his resignation.
„Jurnalul Naţional asks for the resignation of ANAF chief, Sorin Blejnar, who has been investigated by Braşov police and prosecutors, since last summer, for taking a bribe in exchange for protecting oil smuggling groups and tax evasion offenders.
In other words, instead of being the arch-enemy of smugglers, the ANAF chief became one of them. „The leading and advising team (of the group subject to investigation, editor’s note) includes the ANAF president Sorin Blejnar, aka Godfather, who, in exchange for his services and for interventions by relevant local authorities (fiscal warehousing authorisations, tax evasion plans, fraudulent intra-community delivery registrations, management or rental contracts, etc.) allegedly demanded 3 million euros, to be transferred to an offshore bank account,“ read the preliminary conclusions in the legal file against the criminal group headed by Cecilian Morcov.
In the same case, in October 2010 two subordinates of Sorin Blejnar were also arrested: Monea Claudiu Gheorghe – director of the Braşov County Directorate for Excises and Customs Operations, and Ciobanu Dorel, head of the Excised Product Monitoring Department in the same institution. The two were charged with supporting an organised crime group, complicity in tax evasion, and fraud. The damages caused to the state were put at RON 11,730,891.574. The charges are rather serious, and Prime Minister Boc needs nothing more to immediately dismiss Sorin Blejnar.
This would only prove consistency on the Prime Minister’s part, after he said, on February the 26th, in Oradea, that if the Prosecutor’s Office or the National Anti-Corruption Directorate submitted a request for criminal prosecution, Sorin Blejnar would be discharged. „If the Prosecutor’s Office or the DNA sends me a notification on the commencement of criminal prosecution, he will be dismissed, as has been any public official subject to criminal prosecution,“ Boc explained. He emphasised that it was not a new rule. „This is hardly a novelty. Any public official that we have appointed, and who is subject to criminal prosecution —I repeat, we are not talking about indictment, but about the commencement of criminal prosecution — will be dismissed,“ Boc said. Moreover, the ANAF chief has been accused by former and current Customs staff of being the „queen„ on the customs corruption chessboard. For this reason, we demand Sorin Blejnar’s resignation as president of ANAF.” Jurnalul Naţional (March 18th, 2011)
“Sorin Blejnar has a 2-ml Euro villa”
Real life beats wealth statements. When he bought his home in Bucharest in 2009, ANAF chief Sorin Blejnar declared it was worth little over 200,000 euros. But estimates by real estate analysts are ten times that figure. Furthermore, renovation works have been going on since last spring. Today, the house looks like a palace: a 1,000-sqm one.
Sorin Blejnar bought the house in 2009. Meanwhile, the ANAF chief built an attic as well. The house has 276 sqm in area, and the estimated worth is „two million euros, perhaps more“, says real estate analyst Radu Zilişteanu.
But the ANAF president put down a different figure in his wealth statement. About ten times less, to be more precise. Neighbours say the house bloomed by the day.
„The house only had the ground and the first floor. They have built the rest since 2009. You should see the bathtub they have at the basement! I’ve never seen anything like it! I saw it when they brought it in. I walk my dog here every day„, says a neighbour.
The modernisation of the villa goes on. But the workers thought the job was not as interesting as it was to expose their private parts. From one of the windows of Blejnar’s home.” Cotidianul, March 16th, 2011.
Sorin Blejnar’s Famiglia
“By blog www.sroscas.ro started on July the 25th, 2009 with an article headlined “Top-Level Crime and Corruption,” which specifically referred to Sorin Blejnar, who had been appointed as ANAF chief relatively recently. The feature revealed information on freight trains carrying diesel, but registered as transporting black oil. I was warning back then that the huge amounts of extra money from excises were injected in party budgets. Which party? PD-L. On September the 18th of the same year, I was the first to note that a criminal case was opened against Sorin Blejnar. For the same type of operations. Who is this Sorin Blejnar? Who backs him up? And who is he backing up? The recent scandal sparked by the appointment of playboy Silviu Vaduva as head of the Bucharest Customs Office is a pretext for us to try to answer these questions.
Silviu Vaduva, an enthusiastic nightclubber who has not made a secret of his adventurous love life, including affairs with PD-L celeb and ex-prefect of Bucharest Mioara Mantale, and with Ramona Gabor, Monica Columbeanu’s sister, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, with no relevant experience whatsoever, gets to be the head of the most important customs office in Romania. So important, mind you, that it virtually controls the others as well. Was there a lottery of public appointments, that Silviu Vaduva was lucky enough to win? No way. He is an old-time protégé of Adriean Videanu. And of Sorin Blejnar. As such, he is a self-styled “consultant” — either to some department of the Bucharest Mayoralty, or to the Labour Ministry. And as you know, in Romania consultant posts are usually given to party protégés. Their job is to collect bribes. And to redistribute it. Of course, after they keep some for themselves.
This is how in 2009 Silviu Vaduva managed the outstanding performance of donating to the party (which got him on its provisional Parliament candidate list) about eight times more than he earned during an entire year. Moreover, he lent another two million euros to others. Exactly. From his civil servant salary. As a common consultant.” – Sorin Roşca Stănescu – Ziua de vest – 01.03.2011
Sorin Blejnar’s network. The chart of corruption in ANAF
ANAF president Sorin Blejnar’s inner circle only includes individuals probed into or arrested for misuse of authority, bribery, smuggling. After cross-checking the names and the data obtained from the National Anti-Corruption Directorate or other judicial institutions, Agentia.org presents the chart of corruption in the National Tax Administration Agency. PSD Senator Valer Marian, a former prosecutor in Sibiu, the one who, after the Revolution, investigated the case of Nicu Ceausescu, spent several nights looking into the Blejnar network. He pieced out the data that the DNA should have checked, and here is what he concluded:
Senior clerk Nicolae Adrian Gavrila, with the Directorate General for Fiscal Inspection Coordination in the National Tax Administration Agency (ANAF), detained by the central DNA office and arrested by the Bucharest Court of Appeals for three counts of misuse of authority, as he reportedly took 1.8 million euros from the Italian businessman Antonello Celestini (with most of the amount presumed to have been transferred to ANAF president Sorin Blejnar and the current director of the National Customs Authority (ANV), Viorel Comanita, a former director of the Judicial Affairs Directorate and the Directorate for Excise and Customs Operations Monitoring in the ANV), is also probed into by the Oradea regional office of ANV, for his suspected involvement in the 130,000 euro bribery case involving the former chief of the Halmeu Checkpoint, Nicoleta Dobrescu. On this occasion, the respective ANAF employee advised him not to return to Romania, and if he does, not to disclose anything that might lead to the investigation of any ANV or ANAF chiefs, and offered 200,000 euros in exchange for his silence … Agentia.org – 7.03.2011
by prof. Cezar DOBRE
