The mayor of Belgrade has refused to answer to reporters, who tried to ask him about being a director of two offshore companies that own apartments in Bulgaria.

When journalists from investigative website KRIK approached Mayor Sinisa Mali at a construction site on Wednesday, their mobile phone and camera were confiscated by the plain-clothed officers guarding him.

The officers, who refused to identify themselves, deleted footage from the reporters’ iPhone and camera. The reporters were later able to recover some of the material.

Among the men who confiscated equipment belonging to KRIK reporters was Chief of Municipal Police Nikola Ristic, seen in their footage from the scene.

During a conference later in the day, Sinisa Mali apologized to the journalists and promised to launch an investigation into the confiscation of their equipment.

According to a recent investigation by reporters from KRIK along with partners OCCRP, Mali owns propertie at a resort on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast and he is a director of two firms based in the British Virgin Islands tax haven.