Romania’s anticorruption prosecutors sent to court Marian Vanghelie, the former mayor of District 5, who has been under preventive arrest since mid-March.

They charged him on nine counts of abuse of office, nine counts of bribery and seven offences of money laundering, according to the National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA). Vanghelie damaged the municipality’s budget by EUR 65.8 million, by awarding overpriced public work contracts.

The prosecutors also sent several other people to court, in the same case, including local businessman Dumitru Marin, whose companies benefited from the contracts.

Between 2006 and 2014, Vanghelie allegedly requested and received EUR 30 million from Dumitru Marin, to award him several public contracts. The amount represented some 20% of the respective contracts, which totaled EUR 164 million.

editor@romania-insider.com