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| Media Headlines 04/02/2011 |
| (2011-02-04) |
| Last updated: 2011-02-07 14:38 EET |
Romanian anti-corruption prosecutors used three coaches to transport the border police and customs officers detained on Thursday on charges of bribe-taking and cigarette smuggling, to Siret, Northern Romania.
According to the daily paper Jurnalul National, “some 200 cases of cigarettes were smuggled in from the Republic of Moldova in the course of 24 hours. The smuggled goods were brought in with the help of some locals. Investigators say the smuggled cigarettes were transported by bike.”
The daily paper also quotes one of the police department union leaders as saying that the “arrested officers might be indicted for lack of response, rather than for their corrupt practices”. The union leader further condemned the fact that “any customs worker doing his job or her job is transferred elsewhere or even removed from office.”
The daily paper Gandul bluntly headlines “the arrested account for one fifth of the total number of employees of the Siret Customs Police Subdivision, virtually making up three working shifts”. Sources within the investigation say “the border and customs officers would get 30,000 euros in one day from those who introduced goods illegally into the country”.
Romania Libera issues a more moderate assessment: “smugglers would pocket some 25,000 euros for one-day’s work”, although readers are not spared the shocking details: “Everyone is involved, from the cleaning lady to the head of the Customs Police and the Customs chief officer. Bribes were collected from small-time border traffic and then each would get his cut. Since hundreds of smugglers would pass through the border, the amounts were huge.”
The daily newspaper Evenimentul Zilei writes “the arrests unfold along the entire border crossing”. “In light of Romania’s Schengen aspirations, the far-reaching anti-corruption operations at the EU’s eastern borders might result in two hundred arrests in the ranks of border police and customs officers”, the daily paper writes under the headline “the Schengen effect”.
The daily paper Adevarul leaves little room for doubt: the recent arrests are merely an episode in a long list of border corruption cases at the Moldovan and Ukrainian eastern border crossings. The mass-arrests over the past six months have paved the way for the prosecutors’ intervention.”
Charged with complicity, numerous border police officers are now behind bars. As for the customs officers, the daily Adevarul offers its readers a case study. “the position of chief of customs office costs approximately 300 thousand euros”.
To get the amount her superiors had required in order to obtain a promotion, a customs worker at the Hungarian border allegedly resorted to moneylenders and smugglers.
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