Seven and a half thousand euros to stop an existing contract being terminated. Then another ten thousand for a procedure that was under appeal. A total of 17,500 euros - and the assistant director of the Administrative and Technical Affairs Directorate at the Customs Administration was caught with the marked cash in his hand.

The case was opened by a citizen. Not internal control, not an audit, not a whistleblowing system - a citizen who went and reported it. The Prosecutor's Office for Organised Crime and Corruption then gathered evidence and ran the operation together with the police units for serious crime.

What exactly was being sold

According to the evidence, between April-May and September this year the suspect repeatedly used his official position to solicit and take money. The first sum of 7,500 euros was demanded over an already-signed public procurement contract for the Customs Administration - the money was to guarantee the contract would run smoothly, with no risk of being torn up.

The second sum of 10,000 euros concerned a different procurement procedure that was under appeal at the time. There the suspect claimed influence over the outcome, the conditions and the technical specifications. In other words - he was not selling a service, he was selling certainty that a state procedure would end a particular way.

The charges are "accepting a bribe" and "accepting a reward for unlawful influence". During the arrest the suspect tried to flee, struck a police officer and threw the bag of money out of a window. The prosecutor has already filed a detention request with the pre-trial judge.

The question nobody has asked

Public procurement is where the state budget meets private interest. If an assistant director could spend months asking for money over contracts that were already signed, then his influence was not invented - it existed. Which means the procedure had room in it for one man to decide whether something moved forward or stopped.

Will the Customs Administration now review every procurement that passed through that department in recent months? Or will the case close with one detention, the way these cases usually close?