A mask and gloves may shield you from the coronavirus, but it won’t protect you from the law.
That’s what one Romanian mayor apparently found out after he donned latex gloves and a surgical mask before meeting a local businessman.
But he didn’t reckon with anti-corruption prosecutors though.
The businessman got into a car with Ilie Munteanu, the Social Democrat mayor of the village of Crisan in eastern Romania, and handed him an envelope containing 10,000 lei. The man also filmed the transaction with a hidden camera.
The money was allegedly part of a bribe the businessman had been asked to pay in exchange for a contract with the town hall, prosecutors said. The sting was set up by the local court in the Danube port of Tulcea and anti-corruption officials.
A court on Saturday ordered the mayor be arrested for 30 days pending an investigation.
Romania’s anti-corruption directorate said in a statement that they had caught the official taking a bribe of 10,000 lei from a man who was cooperating with prosecutors.
The statement said that the unnamed man, who was a manager of a local building company, had won a contract with the town hall for construction work. The mayor had asked the man to pay a 20,000 lei bribe in two installments.
