The Anastasiu Case: How "bribery for survival” became an excuse in a criminal case

When submitting his resignation as deputy prime minister following the scandal regarding the bribe paid to an ANAF inspector for eight years, entrepreneur Dragoş Anastasiu tried to justify his involvement in this corruption case using a classic narrative of being a victim of the system. However, upon careful analysis of his own statements, the story becomes less and less convincing, even if it begins with the tone of a martyr: "It's not something we didn't expect, because when you disturb, people react.” However, from the context presented by the former deputy prime minister of the Bolojan government himself, it does not appear that he "disturbed” anyone through reforms, but rather that he found himself, willingly, in a dubious relationship with control authorities.

In his account of how his company was investigated for years, Dragoş Anastasiu tried to gain empathy from the general public by describing mountains of tickets, absurd checks and useless evidence from the Border Police. Anastasiu told the press representatives present at Victoria Palace on Sunday that "the Border Police evidence, at that time, was absolutely irrelevant”, but, paradoxically, he uses these very evidence to prove his innocence. Moreover, the conclusion of the check - "we have absolutely nothing to reproach you with” - did not exempt him from criminal prosecution. Here comes a suspiciously convenient explanation: "After three years of investigation, I cannot justify, to simply close this file, which is why I will propose the initiation of criminal prosecution”, a police officer allegedly told Mr. Anastasiu. An official who admits his innocence, but still proposes a criminal investigation, was practically committing an abuse of office, but Dragoş Anastasiu did not seem interested in reporting the police officer who handled the case involving the former deputy prime minister's company at that time.

Dragoş Anastasiu's true logical fracture appears when he makes the transition from presenting himself as a victim to his status as an accomplice, without the former deputy prime minister being aware of this. Anastasiu stated that "in 2009, ANAF comes... and begins a five-year background check", and then, faced with a so-called "constructive proposal" to close the case with the help of a company recommended by the inspector, he accepts. Why? Because "I had a choice between a possible bankruptcy... or giving in to blackmail", Dragoş Anastasiu specified. But this is exactly where the entire construction of honesty falls apart. If you admit that you gave in to blackmail, and then continue to justify this for years with dozens of unpaid contracts and invoices, you can no longer invoke integrity. The fact that "my partner signed a contract” does not absolve him: "I knew in the first phase”, Anastasiu himself admits. But passive complicity is no more honorable than direct action.

To dress everything in an aura of nobility, the former deputy prime minister invoked irrelevant statistics: "my company paid 75 million lei in taxes to the state in the eight years”. We note that paying taxes is not a performance, it is an obligation. Then Dragoş Anastasiu obsessively returned to the idea that he had not fundamentally made a mistake: "No, I am not a bribe-taker. I am an honest and upright man. And when I had the whole truth, I went to the DNA”. But the truth does not come with selective delay. When he says that "we had no information that, for example, the invoices were not paid”, he forgets that he also admits: "a whole series of invoices for trips were issued... but we did not know that they were unpaid”. How can a man who claims to manage a network of companies and considers himself a rigorous professional not know, for years in a row - four years according to Dragoş Anastasiu's statement, that some invoices related to a company "recommended” by an ANAF inspector are not paid?

And perhaps the most problematic line of defense is that of "survival bribes”. "There are survival bribes and there are enrichment bribes”, stated the former deputy prime minister. It is a dangerous division, because it justifies breaking the law in the name of context. "From our point of view, the matter was in the survival zone”, he says, but survival does not exonerate morally or legally. If this becomes the norm, then any act of corruption can be packaged as "necessity.” It is equally dangerous when he states that "this entire period was a zone of fear and survival,” as if fear justified continued complicity. In the end, between the narrative contradictions and subjective justifications, only one certain truth remains: Anastasiu knew. He knew and chose to remain silent. He knew and accepted. And when the truth became inevitable, he built himself a convenient story of delayed innocence. "Everything I said was true,” he says. But the truth told too late, incompletely, and selectively is not honesty. It is just a sophisticated form of perception manipulation. And the public opinion should not swallow it whole.