A financial consultant and superior counselor within Romania's fiscal authority ANAF and a Bucharest Bar lawyer were retained for 24 hours on Wednesday with a request for their 29-day arrest under charges of traffic of influence, according to a National Anti-corruption Department (DNA) press release. The Bucharest Appeals Court subsequently issued a preventive arrest warrant on the name of ANAF official Nicolae Adrian Gavrila and lawyer Marius Catalin Stancescu.

Nicolae-Adrian Gavrila is accused with receiving 120,000 euro from a denouncer in 2007-2008 in order to intervene with ANAF decision makers so that they not block the accounts of a company where the denouncer held shares. In 2008, Gavrila allegedly claimed 400,000 euro from the same person to intervene with a top official of the National Customs Administration so that a transfer of 960 tonnes of tobacco from Romania to Italy, without the payment of due excises, take place.