Producer orders Sicilian style killings

Victims buried alive, corpses thrown in the Danube… this weekend's Romanian press looks back at a string of four murders perpetrated in mafioso — or as the front page of Evenimentul Zileiputs it — "Sicilian style," between 2006 and 2008. Acting on information obtained from suspects detained in Constanta on 17 January, Bucharest police have now arrested businessman Băhăian "the producer of the film Asphalt Tango (a Romanian box-office hit in 1996 by director Nae Caranfil), who is alleged to have ordered the killings, along with three suspected accomplices." At the head of the Sabina Product financial empire, which has since collapsed, Băhăian passed himself off as a "powerful patron of the arts." But Evenimentul Zilei reports that behind the scenes he had created "a criminal organization" with strong links to the construction industry, which had no qualms about resorting to barbaric methods to rid itself of business partners who were "no longer necessary."