Victor Ponta’s decision on Wednesday to resign as Romania’s prime minister may not be the end of his woes. Street protests this week were merely the culmination of months of pressure triggered by a fraud and corruption case against him.

Ponta is not alone. A slew of politicians, mayors, judges and prosecutors have been targeted in an anti-corruption drive quite unlike any other in eastern Europe – or the world for that matter. And it is a quiet, unassuming chief prosecutor, Laura Codruţa Kövesi, who is bringing in the scalps.

“Before 2005, Romanian justice was not independent,” says Kövesi, 42, in an interview given before Ponta’s resignation. “This is why there was not enough courage to open complex investigations against high-level officials.”



A specialist anti-corruption agency, known by the acronym DNA, was founded in 2003, and it took a few years for it to narrow its focus on high-level graft – cases involving more than €10,000 (£7,000) – and for it to start bringing successful prosecutions.

Nowadays there are 120 prosecutors working on more than 6,000 cases. The entrance to the DNA’s central Bucharest offices is permanently staked out by television news crews waiting to see who will turn up next for questioning.

Last year the agency successfully prosecuted 24 mayors, five MPs, two ex-ministers and a former prime minister, not to mention more than 1,000 other individuals, including judges and prosecutors, with a conviction rate above 90%.



“This year we have investigated 12 members of parliament, two of them being former ministers,” says Kövesi, who was appointed head of DNA in 2013. “We have investigated two sitting ministers, one of whom went from his ministerial chair directly to pre-trial detention.”

In September, Bucharest’s mayor, Sorin Oprescu, was arrested after being accused of taking kickbacks from companies awarded contracts by the city.



Romania’s prime minister, Victor Ponta (right), leaves the government headquarters after announcing his resignation. Photograph: Inquam Photos/Reuters

However, Ponta is by far the biggest target to date. According to Kövesi, the investigations into the outgoing prime minister lasted about four months, at the end of which he was formally indicted on multiple counts of forgery, money laundering and being an accessory to tax evasion, dating from a period between 2007 and 2008 when he was still a practising lawyer.

Prosecutors had hoped to investigate him for activities while in office, but in June Romania’s parliament voted down an attempt to lift his parliamentary immunity.

Romanians seem to have been impressed by the activities of DNA: according to one recent poll, 60% of people said they trusted the agency, while only 11% said they trusted parliament.

However, not everyone is happy with DNA’s activities. Barely a week goes by without Kövesi being attacked in the media.

After he was formally indicted, Ponta denounced the prosecutor in charge of his case on his Facebook page, saying Romania’s only problem was “the obsession of a totally unprofessional prosecutor trying to make a name by inventing and imagining facts and untrue situations from 10 years ago”.

Others have questioned the political motivations of prosecutors at DNA, though the agency has successfully gone after plenty of politicians on both sides of the parliamentary aisle.

Some have also criticised the use of wiretaps, suggesting it is behaviour taken from the playbook of the Securitate, the feared communist-era secret police.

Kövesi dismisses those concerns, saying that every wiretap has to be authorised by a judge and that such monitoring is “a tool used all over the world. It is used in EU member states. It is a common tool for prosecutors.”

The criticism and public attention has apparently had little impact on Kövesi. “Before being chief prosecutor of DNA I was the general prosecutor of Romania for six years, so for the last nine years I have had enough time to get accustomed to these things. Fortunately there are people who also praise me, so things are balanced,” she says.

The biggest challenges for prosecutors come from politicians, she adds. “Every two weeks they come with a new bill trying to change or amend the current provisions. Trying to limit our possibilities of investigations. Trying to amend the criminal code. Trying to deprive us of our tools to limit our possibilities of investigation. What’s curious is they never try to improve the legislation to help us more,” she says.

Strong support in Romania and within the EU has made it harder to hinder the efforts and independence of DNA. “Every time we hear that they try to pass a new law limiting our possibilities, we go public and we take a stand regarding this issue,” says Kövesi.

Despite all this, there is still a long way to go. Romania ranked joint last among EU members on Transparency International’s 2014 corruption perceptions index, alongside Italy, Greece and Bulgaria. But for Kövesi at least there is a sense that the agency is making a difference.

“I do think DNA’s activities have changed the mentality of Romanian citizens,” she says. “They are aware now that they don’t need to pay bribes in order to be granted their rights.”