Romania's gambling regulator faces fresh bribery case as deputy chief targeted
2026-07-31
Source: SBC News
Prosecutors have sought a 30-day preventive arrest warrant for ONJN deputy director general Ana-Maria Badea over alleged bribe-taking, adding to a series of corruption scandals that have shaken Romania's gambling regulator.
Romanian anti-corruption prosecutors have requested a 30-day preventive arrest warrant for Ana-Maria Badea, deputy director general of the country’s gambling regulator, over repeated bribery offences, in a case that deepens the agency’s recent run of integrity problems.
Badea, the second-most-senior figure at the General Directorate for the Authorisation of Gambling (ONJN) after President Vlad-Cristian Soare, is accused of taking €2,500 (£2,100) in bribes to speed up approvals for gambling games. Romanian media reported the case on Thursday. The wider investigation suggests ONJN officials accepted money to favour specific operators, and Badea’s husband and a number of other inspectors have been placed under supervised release. DNA prosecutors also searched ONJN’s Bucharest headquarters.
A pattern of scrutiny
The case follows the arrest in June of Odeta Nestor, who served as ONJN president from 2013 to 2017 and then led the Association of Remote Gambling Operators (AOJND), from which she was reportedly dismissed after her detention. Nestor is alleged to have facilitated a €100,000 bribe between an ONJN official and a Bulgarian citizen acting on behalf of an unnamed gambling company, reportedly to help conceal money laundering violations. She was placed under house arrest, a measure due to expire on 29 July, although no official word has emerged on whether she has been cleared.
The regulator is also still dealing with fallout from an independent audit in 2025 that flagged almost €1bn (£855.5m) in missing taxes. That finding led to the resignation of then-president Gheorghe Gabriel Gheorghe and the appointment of Soare.
Institutional response
Soare said the current investigation involves four officials from the control and authorisations departments and reiterated that ONJN is cooperating with the criminal prosecution authorities. He also noted that an internal reorganisation based on integrity criteria was already underway, arguing the latest events validate that direction. “ONJN must operate with zero tolerance towards acts of corruption,” he said.