Romania's High Court closed through prescription the case involving the former head of the tax collection agency ANAF, Serban Pop, condemned by a lower court to 13 years in jail and the return of EUR 2.5 million received as a bribe.

Pop will still have to return the EUR 2.5 million bribe, Economica.net reported.

The former vice-president of ANAF joins a long series of high-profile convicted persons who have escaped corruption cases as a result of the application of some decisions of the Constitutional Court regarding the prescription.

Pop was accused by the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) that, between January 31 and December 23, 2008, he demanded from a businessman the sum of EUR 5 million, of which he received in four instalments, in the accounts of some offshore companies that he controlled through intermediaries, EUR 2.5 million.

In September 2022, the Bucharest Court of Appeal found him guilty.

iulian@romania-insider.com

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