A Romanian man known as Nutzu the Pawnbroker has been indicted for leading a fearsome criminal gang, but the public seems to be more interested in his pets: four lions and two bears.

Ion Balint — his real name — had long been known to have an affinity for wild beasts in his home.

"You said I fed men to the lions?" Balint was recorded saying on a videotape as he rode away from prison on a black stallion in 2010. "Why don't you come over and I'll give you some lions!"

Authorities won't confirm that the lions and bears were used to intimidate rivals at his high-walled and heavily guarded estate in the poorest part of Romania's capital, Bucharest. The compound also contained less fearsome beasts, including thoroughbred horses and canaries.

Balint, 48, a stocky man with a mustache and a receding hairline, often appears dressed in T-shirts and tracksuits.

---

The Romanian news media were awash in unconfirmed reports about Balint's excesses, reporting that he used the lions and bears to intimidate rivals and that his house contained a torture chamber.

His son-in-law, Marius Vlad, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the reports were false.

"Many untruths are being reported," he said.

'A good neighbor'
Bystanders and relatives who gathered near the gates of the estate described Balint as a good neighbor and an animal lover, and said they weren't bothered by roaring lions.

"We can hear them every day, but only when they're hungry or the female is in heat," said Gabriela Ionescu, 36, clutching her toddler daughter's hand. "They don't disturb us at all."

Authorities allege that Balint and his brother Vasile headed a criminal network that controlled much of the underworld activity in Bucharest, a city of 2 million. Some 400 police and detectives were involved in the investigation that led to the arrest last week of 67 suspects, including the Balint brothers.

In 2009, Balint was convicted of human trafficking, violence and pimping, and sentenced to 13 years in prison. That was reduced to six years, but Balint was free after a year.

On Wednesday, the four lions and two bears were sedated, put in cages and removed by environmental authorities and the Vier Pfoten animal welfare charity. The animals, which generally appeared in good condition, will be temporarily housed in a zoo and may eventually be relocated in South Africa, animal welfare officers said.

Mircea Pupaza, commissioner of the National Environment Guard, told The Associated Press that Balint had no documentation or health records for the animals, which he's kept illegally for 10 years. He could face a year in prison and a hefty fine for illegally keeping wild animals.

"The lions are a status symbol for him," said Livia Cimpoeru, a Vier Pfoten spokeswoman. She declined to speculate whether they had a more sinister purpose.

Dr. Catalin Cirstoveanu runs a cardio unit with state-of-the-art equipment at a Bucharest children's hospital. But not a single child has been treated in the year-and-a-half since it opened.

The reason?

Medical staff he needs to bring in to run the machinery would have expected bribes.

So Cirstoveanu has launched a lonely crusade to save babies who come to him for care: He flies them to Western Europe on budget flights so they can be treated by doctors who don't demand kickbacks.

That's what Cirstoveanu did last week for 13-day-old Catalin, who needed heart surgery. Cirstoveanu packed a small bag, slipped emergency breathing equipment into the baby carrier and caught a cheap flight to Italy, where doctors were waiting to perform the surgery.

---

The operation was successful. Two days later, though, a 3-week-old baby that Cirstoveanu whisked away to the same clinic in northwestern Italy — with tubes piercing her tiny frame — died before she was able to have lymph gland surgery.

"I was very worried it wouldn't work," said Cirstoveanu. "But in Romania, she would have died anyway."

The soft-spoken Cirstoveanu is fighting an exhausting and largely solitary battle against a culture of corruption that's so embedded in Romania that surgeons demand bribes to save infants' lives and it's even necessary to slip cash to a nurse to get your sheets changed.

It's one of the reasons why the country's infant mortality rate is more than double the European Union average, with one in 100 children not reaching their first birthday.

"To be honest, it's so deeply rooted into our system that it's really difficult to eliminate," Health Minister Ladislau Ritli said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Officially, the new cardio unit that Cirstoveanu runs at the Marie Curie children's hospital isn't functioning because jobs have not been filled. The real reason appears to be that Cirstoveanu has banned staff from taking bribes. That means that high-tech machinery lies idle because qualified experts do not bother to apply for jobs, as they know they cannot supplement their incomes with bribes.

The zero-tolerance policy to corruption makes for a grueling work schedule for Cirstoveanu, who needs to shuttle babies abroad for surgery — and take care of them on the flight. During the two-hour flight with the girl who died, Cirstoveanu fixed tubes, sedated her and hand-pumped oxygen to keep her alive.

In the less than 24 hours Cirstoveanu had in Bucharest between returning from Catalin's trip and departing with the little girl, he even squeezed in a shift at the Marie Curie clinic.

Endemic corruption
Patients in Romania routinely discuss the "stock market" rate for bribes. Surgeons can get hundreds of dollars and upward for an operation, while anesthetists get roughly a third of that, depending also on what a patient can afford. Nurses receive a few dollars from patients each time they administer medications or put in drips. Getting a certificate stamped to have an operation abroad can easily cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars if you ask the wrong doctor.

While the Romanian state appears unwilling to do anything, it often ends up footing the bill.

At the Marie Curie unit, Catalin's operation would have cost $2,700 to $4,000 without bribes. Romanian state health insurance is paying 10 times that for his operation in Italy — a small fortune in a country where the average monthly salary is about $460 after tax.

Many disillusioned doctors have abandoned the country, which spends just 4 percent of its gross domestic product in health care — about half of the percentage of GDP spent by Western European countries.

Last year, some 2,800 Romanian doctors — discouraged by the antiquated and corrupt health system and low wages — left to work in Western Europe, according to the Romanian College of Doctors.

"Ideally, we would have decent salaries and nobody would be tempted to accept informal payments," said the Ritli, the health minister. "And the population would be educated so people would believe that this is not the only way to get proper health care."

Bribes across Romania accounted for some $1 million a day in 2005, according to a World Bank report; more recent estimates are not available. The culture of bribes — or "informal payments" as they're commonly known — is tacitly accepted.

But anger is rising. One of Marie Curie's donors, Procter & Gamble, has several times gone back to the hospital and the Health Ministry to ask questions about when the unit will start functioning.

The tragic plight of Romanian children is nothing new.

Communist legacy
In a misguided effort to boost Romania's then-population of 23 million, Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu banned birth control and abortion, which led to thousands of infants being left in orphanages in harrowing conditions broadcast around the world after his execution in 1989.

Nearly a quarter-century later, the country's shortcomings are again being seen through the gaze of children and powerless parents trapped in a web of corruption.

For those whose children die shortly after birth, grief is magnified when they do not receive a birth certificate or even see their babies alive. Angela Vasile, whose baby daughter, Cristina, only lived one day, saw her infant just once after she'd died, lying on a metal table.

She was then put in a ward of nursing mothers, adding to her anguish.

Bianca Brad, a Romanian celebrity, spoke out publicly about the pain of losing her baby at birth — calling the situation "criminal." She founded the "EMMA Association" to help grieving parents, offering support for those who do not receive psychological counseling and remain locked in years of grief.

Yet remarkable things are happening at the Marie Curie Hospital. Cirstoveanu is personally overseeing the survival of Baby Andrei, an 8-month-old Roma baby born to underage parents. His intestines are almost nonexistent.

The tiny infant who weighs about 4.4 pounds with limbs that look like gnarled twigs was given only days to live. His bright eyes, alert gaze and lively personality have endeared him to all staff who comfort him in their arms as much as they can outside of his incubator.

Andrei can only have lifesaving surgery in the United States — and a fee of hundreds of thousands of dollars is proving prohibitive. Nurses are so fond of the bright boy that they are playing the state lottery in an attempt to raise funds for his surgery.

Even in this grim setting, there are signs that doctors are mobilizing in a bid to make things better.

Anca Mandache, a child heart surgeon, left her career in France to offer her services to the Marie Curie hospital, taking a salary one tenth of what she would have earned there. Others also are expressing an interest in working at the clinic

Cirstoveanu, who also flies sick babies to Germany and Austria, says he feels "ashamed" that he has to go to the lengths he does to save children, but talks with pride of the moment he sees the joy of relieved parents whose babies survive.

They are in awe of his dedication.

"Cirstoveanu is more than a hero — he is a god for us and the children," said Gheorghe Meliusoiu, Catalin's 28-year-old woodcutter father. "If there were more like him, many lives would be saved."

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Israel fires tear gas at Palestinians at Land Day rally
• Carnival air in Myanmar ahead of election
• Hong Kong firm loses $4.9 billion in one day
• Hermaphrodites push for human rights in Germany
• UN orders Syria cease-fire: 'The deadline is now'
• US soldier dies saving Afghan girl
• Children at Afghan massacre: Bales not alone

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

BUCHAREST, Romania - Romania's prime minister on Monday fired the foreign minister over insulting remarks he made about anti-government protesters.

Emil Boc said in a speech that Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi was fired for making inappropriate remarks about protesters, who have taken to the streets for the past 10 days to demonstrate against austerity measures and call for the resignation of President Traian Basescu and the government.

---

Last week, as anti-government protests raged in Romania, Baconschi wrote on his blog that Romanians who work for a living will decide the country's future, not the "violent and clueless slums." Baconschi's comments caused outrage.

Boc apologized to protesters during an extraordinary two-day Parliament session called by opposition parties following the protests.

"I present apologies from the parliamentary tribune to the Romanian public for these verbal errors," he said.

Some protesters gathered in Bucharest's University Square said the dismissal did not satisfy them. The opposition also said the firing of Baconschi did not go far enough, and lawmakers called for early elections, saying Basescu, parliament and the government are no longer wanted by the people.

"Romania needs radical solutions — early presidential and early general elections to be held as soon as possible," said Crin Antonescu who leads the opposition Liberal Party. "We believe most Romanians are discontented and reject their political leaders."

Baconschi was appointed foreign minister in Dec. 2009, and before that he was Romania's ambassador to the Vatican and to Paris.

He is currently in Brussels for a European Union meeting of foreign ministers. According to the Mediafax news agency, Baconschi said he had received a text message from the prime minister telling him that he was fired.

More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Interpol faces legal threat for helping oppressive regimes hunt dissidents
• EU adopts Iran oil embargo amid 'Lockerbie' fear
• North Korea marks lunar New Year with flowers named after dictator
• Megaupload suspect Kim Dotcom denies Internet piracy, money laundering
• Thai man marries dead girlfriend, posts to YouTube
• Texas family survives Honduras plane crash into ocean
• Slideshow: Slices of life in Iran

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Protests continued for a sixth day across Romania, as hundreds gathered in the capital city Bucharest and in about 40 other cities, calling for President Traian Basescu’s resignation and denouncing the government’s austerity measures and systemic corruption.

As night fell Tuesday, about 200 anti-government protesters gathered in downtown Bucharest, yelling slogans such as "Resignation!" and "Down with Basescu!" Officials reported the number rose to about 1,000 protesters by the end of the day.

---

Protesters have raged for several days over austerity cuts, falling living standards and widespread corruption. Gathered in freezing temperatures, they chanted "Freedom!,” holding banners reading "Hunger and poverty have gripped Romania!"

Some protesters waved Romanian flags with the center cut out, reminiscent of the 1989 anti-communist protests.

Live video from the protests in Bucharest's University Square.

Romania is one of the newest and poorest European Union members, but the country is not part of the Eurozone. Romania's economy shrunk more than 7 percent in 2009, and the country needed an International Monetary Fund bail-out to pay its public sector wages. To qualify for another installment of the IMF loan, Romania agreed to implement new austerity measures, including a 25 percent cut in public wages.

The cuts were characterized as “brutal and unthinkable in a West European country” by Andreas Treichl, the president of Austria's Erste Group, the largest foreign investor in the Romanian banking sector.

Officials said about 13,000 protesters hit the streets across the country since Friday. Police said they fined 247 people Monday, and 36 were charged with illegally carrying knives, vandalism or disturbing public order during Monday's protests in Bucharest and other Romanian cities.

The French publication Le Monde noted that, while the number of protesters is relatively modest, their actions represent a “shock” in a country where civil society seemed struck with apathy.

“It was an outburst,” Romanian freelance journalist Vlad Ursulean told msnbc.com. “The cynicism disappeared.”

Ursulean covered the protests in Bucharest on Sunday, watching closely as riot police clashed with protesters. Riot police used tear gas and batons against the demonstrators, some of whom hurled rocks at the police. At least 59 people were injured in the clashes, officials said.

While authorities said violence only erupted when soccer hooligans infiltrated the protests, Ursulean said the crowd of protesters was diverse and the soccer fans made up a small part of it. One of the protesters told the riot police he wouldn’t be in the street if he could afford to feed his daughter, Ursulean reported.

Prime Minister Emil Boc said on Monday the violence was “unacceptable.”

“Each citizen who protests and is unhappy concerns me,” he added on Tuesday.

Protests were sparked last week, when Raed Arafat – a high-ranking health ministry official – resigned in opposition to government plans to privatize the country’s medical emergency system. But the anti-regime sentiment grew quickly among the protesters, and demonstrations spread.   

The prime minister said Tuesday that Arafat, a naturalized Palestinian, will return to his job, in what was seen as a step to defuse the public anger at the government. But protests continued in spite of this development, hinting at “a deep-seated expression of the population’s frustration,” political science professor Lavinia Stan told msnbc.com.

“The protests have taken a life of their own,” Stan said. If they continue and remain peaceful, they could pose a serious problem to President Basescu and the government, she said. Local and parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place later this fall.

Opposition parties tried to capitalize on the protests, demanding early elections, but protests remain apolitical for now. A protest march led by the opposition is now scheduled for Thursday.

“Everything seems a lot like the Occupy movement in its early stages,” Chris Williamson, a Peace Corps volunteer who’s been living in Romania for almost two years, told msnbc.com.

“There are a lot of people who are angry about different problems, but there isn't a set goal or plan for anything.”

An IMF mission coming to Romania to review the country’s loan deal is still on schedule for Jan.25.

BUCHAREST, Romania - Two self-professed witches were detained in Romania on blackmail and extortion charges on Wednesday in a high-profile case involving a TV star and reportedly other public figures.

Police spokesman Christian Ciocan said the two women — who go by the single names of Melissa and Vanessa — approached public figures promising to help them overcome work or love difficulties, and help them break curses.

---

He said the women initially charged very little, but then, as their victims became hooked on their services, increased their prices.

Ciocan cited one case where the victim — who later publicly identified herself as TV personality Oana Zavoranu — handed over euro450,000 (US$593,000) in cash and property in exchange for spells.

He said the witches practiced voodoo, and sacrificed animals in graveyards and near rivers, claiming this would protect Zavoranu from her mother and in-laws who had put a curse on her.

The witches, however, claim Zavoranu is being vengeful because she asked them to cast a spell on her mother that would kill her, but the mother is still alive.

The ex-wife of businessman Cristi Borcea, one of two owners of Romanian football team Dinamo Bucharest, was also cited as a victim, but she has neither confirmed or denied the case.

Ciocan said if the victims tried to cease payment, the two women would threaten to put a spell on them, or disclose details of their personal lives.

A court ruled Melissa and Vanessa will be released later Wednesday, awaiting trial.

Many people believe in witchcraft in Romania. President Traian Basescu and his aides have been known to wear purple on certain days, supposedly to ward off evil.

Romania has recently been trying to introduce legislation to limit witchcraft. This month, lawmaker Nicolae Paun, who represents the Roma, or Gypsies, in Parliament, said legislation must be enacted to stop what he called "backward practices."

Most self-professed witches in Romania are Roma.

Read more content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• Fifth victim found as police profile Belgium killer
• Iraqis unable to defend their borders as US exits
• Hunt for terrorists shifts to 'dangerous' North Africa, Panetta says
• US halts $700 million in Pakistan aid, demands action on Taliban
• Chinese artist depicts portraits of corruption
• NJ basketball tycoon launches Russia presidency bid

WASHINGTON - In northern Bucharest, in a busy residential neighborhood minutes from the heart of the capital city, is a secret the Romanian government has long tried to protect.

For years, the CIA used a government building — codenamed "Bright Light" — as a makeshift prison for its most valuable detainees. There it held al-Qaida operatives Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, and others in a basement prison before they were ultimately transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006, according to former U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the location and inner workings of the prison.

The existence of a CIA prison in Romania has been widely reported, but its location has never been made public. The Associated Press and German public television ARD located the former prison and learned details of the facility where harsh interrogation tactics were used. ARD's program on the CIA prison is set to air Thursday.

---

The Romanian prison was part of a network of so-called black sites that the CIA operated and controlled overseas in Thailand, Lithuania and Poland. All the prisons were closed by May 2006, and the CIA's detention and interrogation program ended in 2009.  

 Unlike the CIA's facility in Lithuania's countryside or the one hidden in a Polish military installation, the CIA's prison in Romania was not in a remote location. It was hidden in plain sight, a couple blocks off a major boulevard on a street lined with trees and homes, along busy train tracks.

• Excerpt: 'Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaida'

The building is used as the National Registry Office for Classified Information, which is also known as ORNISS. Classified information from NATO and the European Union is stored there. Former intelligence officials both described the location of the prison and identified pictures of the building.

In an interview at the building in November, senior ORNISS official Adrian Camarasan said the basement is one of the most secure rooms in all of Romania. But he said Americans never ran a prison there.

"No, no. Impossible, impossible," he said in an ARD interview for its "Panorama" news broadcast, as a security official monitored the interview.

The CIA prison opened for business in the fall of 2003, after the CIA decided to empty the black site in Poland, according to former U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the detention program with reporters.

Shuttling detainees into the facility without being seen was relatively easy. After flying into Bucharest, the detainees were brought to the site in vans. CIA operatives then drove down a side road and entered the compound through a rear gate that led to the actual prison.

The detainees could then be unloaded and whisked into the ground floor of the prison and into the basement.

Imported Halal meat
The basement consisted of six prefabricated cells, each with a clock and arrow pointing to Mecca, the officials said. The cells were on springs, keeping them slightly off balance and causing disorientation among some detainees.

The CIA declined to comment on the prison.

During the first month of their detention, the detainees endured sleep deprivation and were doused with water, slapped or forced to stand in painful positions, several former officials said. Waterboarding, the notorious interrogation technique that simulates drowning, was not performed in Romania, they said.

• Video: Report: CIA spied on bin Laden for months

After the initial interrogations, the detainees were treated with care, the officials said. The prisoners received regular dental and medical checkups. The CIA shipped in Halal food to the site from Frankfurt, Germany, the agency's European center for operations. Halal meat is prepared under religious rules similar to kosher food.

Former U.S. officials said that because the building was a government installation, it provided excellent cover. The prison didn't need heavy security because area residents knew it was owned by the government. People wouldn't be inclined to snoop in post-communist Romania, with its extensive security apparatus known for spying on the country's own citizens.

Human rights activists have urged the Eastern European countries to investigate the roles their governments played in hosting the prisons in which interrogation techniques such as waterboarding were used. Officials from these countries continue to deny these prisons ever existed.

"We know of the criticism, but we have no knowledge of this subject," Romanian President Traian Basescu said in a September interview with AP.

The CIA has tried to close the book on the detention program, which President Barack Obama ended shortly after taking office.

"That controversy has largely subsided," the CIA's top lawyer, Stephen Preston, said at a conference this month.

'Years of official denials'
But details of the prison network continue to trickle out through investigations by international bodies, reporters and human rights groups. "There have been years of official denials," said Dick Marty, a Swiss lawmaker who led an investigation into the CIA secret prisons for the Council of Europe. "We are at last beginning to learn what really happened in Bucharest."

During the Council of Europe's investigation, Romania's foreign affairs minister assured investigators in a written report that, "No public official or other person acting in an official capacity has been involved in the unacknowledged deprivation of any individual, or transport of any individual while so deprived of their liberty." That report also described several other government investigations into reports of a secret CIA prison in Romania and said: "No such activities took place on Romanian territory."

Reporters and human rights investigators have previously used flight records to tie Romania to the secret prison program. Flight records for a Boeing 737 known to be used by the CIA showed a flight from Poland to Bucharest in September 2003. Among the prisoners on board, according to former CIA officials, were Mohammed and Walid bin Attash, who has been implicated in the bombing of the USS Cole.

• Video: Report: CIA lacks accountability

Later, other detainees — Ramzi Binalshibh, Abd al-Nashiri and Abu Faraj al-Libi — were also moved to Romania. A deceptive al-Libi, who was taken to the prison in June 2005, provided information that would later help the CIA identify Osama bin Laden's trusted courier, a man who unwittingly led them the CIA to bin Laden himself.

 Court documents recently discovered in a lawsuit have also added to the body of evidence pointing to a CIA prison in Romania. The files show CIA contractor Richmor Aviation Inc., a New York-based charter company, operated flights to and from Romania along with other locations including Morocco and the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

For the CIA officers working at the secret prison, the assignment wasn't glamorous. The officers served 90-day tours, slept on the compound and ate their meals there, too. Officers were prevented from the leaving the base after their presence in the neighborhood stoked suspicion. One former officer complained that the CIA spent most of its time baby-sitting detainees like Binalshibh and Mohammed whose intelligence value diminished as the years passed.

The Romanian and Lithuanian sites were eventually closed in the first half of 2006 before CIA Director Porter Goss left the job. Some of the detainees were taken to Kabul, where the CIA could legally hold them before they were sent to Guantanamo. Others were sent back to their native countries.

Read more content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

• PhotoBlog: Pearl Harbor from above, 1941 and 2011
• $50,000 a year not enough for widow to keep her home
• Jerry Sandusky rearrested in Pennsylvania
• Blagojevich sentenced to 14 years in prison