Virgil Ardelean (born August 1, 1950) is a Romanian police chief, head of Direcţia Generală de Informaţii şi Protecţie Internă (DGIPI) between 1998 and 2007.
There, following a telephone call from the local head of the Securitate secret police, Ardelean was diagnosed with "acute bilateral otitis" and ordered to stay in bed, thus avoiding having to choose sides in the Revolution.
The following month, when the new Ion Iliescu government was in danger of being overthrown, Ardelean received a similar order, went into hysterics, was sent to the hospital, diagnosed with "temporary memory loss", and given two weeks' medical leave.
[2] In 1998, he was named to run DGIPI, a unit within the Interior Ministry that is descended from UM 0215, an entity created to employ former cadres of the Securitate who were barred from joining Serviciul Român de Informaţii.
[4] Reportedly, Ardelean, nicknamed Vulpea ("The Fox"), was able to last nine years in his position because he furnished both presidents and prime ministers with compromising information about politicians, businesspeople and intelligence service employees.