Voters wanted a change, they blamed the socialists for Romania's corruption, and they saw the plain-spoken Mr Basescu, a former sea captain and mayor of Bucharest, as a rare honest man.
At 19:30 local time (00:30 GMT), plain-clothed officers Lukasz Kozicki and Michael Levay were on a subway train in Brooklyn when they saw a man move between carriages, city officials said - a clear violation of subway rules.