One of the journalists who discovered the 8 apartments of the Băluță family: “He knew what exactly we were going to discuss”

Daniel Băluță has a house on a plot of land bought in his brother's name from a real estate developer with business with the Sector 4 town hall. And there are 8 apartments in his parents' name. What journalist Răzvan Luțac says after the mayor defended himself considering the disclosures as campaign tools.

I didn't think we'd have to prove in 2025 that we contacted a human, when it's pretty hard to say you couldn't open the mailbox because it was rusty. We showed Snoop how many means we tried to contact Daniel Băluță, before the publication of the investigation. I sent him the questions, he knew exactly what we wanted to discuss.

Even so far, even though 4 days have passed, Daniel Băluță has not provided an answer. The press is also guided by the rule of the right of reply. He answered, generically, to a journalist from Euronews, not in front of the questions related to the documents, put to the mayor by the investigative newsrooms.

In his recent statements, in which he defends himself, Mr. Băluță says two things.

1. “I've always appreciated investigative journalism”

After 2020, the politician filed more than 30 court and administrative complaints against Libertatea journalists, some of which have now reached Snoop. The journalists were heard at DIICOT, after the mayor complained about articles about his activity as a public elected official.

Daniel Băluță lost dozens of lawsuits with investigative journalists. But the massive means put into the mayor's service to sue the press has become a classic SLAPP case. Daniel Băluță also made it to the US State Department's report on human rights in Romania:

“For example, throughout the year, the mayor of District 4 Bucharest, Daniel Baluță, filed over 30 civil cases and administrative complaints against the newspaper Libertatea and asked the newspaper to stop mentioning his name in reports.”

2. Baluță claimed that the Snoop and Public Record investigation is a campaign tool

“The fact that there is probably a conditionality related to the deadline of December 7 prevented your colleagues from investigating a very important thing,” candidate Daniel Băluță also said.

Let's see if it's true. If the investigations with Băluță appear predominantly in the electoral campaign.

In recent years, Snoop journalists, especially during the time spent at Libertatea, have published several investigations about the mayor and the District 4 City Hall. Among them:

A) Let's remember when the head of the Local Police of District 4 was sitting at the pool with the Clan of the Sportsmen.

B) Or when I went to the island of Aegina in Greece and found, at the villa with Romanian cars, Marian Goleac, the right-hand man of the mayor Băluță. Daniel Băluță admitted that he was in Aegina, but only with church problems. It's no joke, he declared.

C) Goleac was definitively convicted after he bought an employee of the DNA to see what files are under investigation about the mayor Băluță and him. In the transcripts of the file, the role of “Băluță's guardian angel” appears, played by Goleac. Marian Goleac explains to the officer, not knowing that he is registered by the DNA, why he is bribing him: “Someone has set me and the mayor and they want to finish us off.”

I end with our note, the authors of the investigation Public Record and Snoop.ro:

There is no conditionality related to the election campaign. The public interest is logically focused on those seeking the vote during election periods, and the public has a right to know who the candidates are. In 2024, in the local elections in Bucharest, about 41% of 1.8 million citizens voted.