Minister of Interior: Dozens of Peevski’s Flights Paid For With Funds Diverted Through ‘Piggy Bank’ Companies

A briefing was held at the Council of Ministers on measures taken by the institutions to combat corruption. It was attended by Prime Minister Rumen Radev, Minister of Interior Ivan Demerdzhiev, Minister of Innovation and Digital Transformation Ivan Vasilev, and State Agency for National Security (SANS) Chairman Plamen Tonchev.

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“Justice in a civilised society is not restored by street protests. Justice is not restored solely through the actions of the government. Justice is restored through the actions of the judiciary. But when we have a problem, when cases are being blocked, we will continue to work, because the executive branch cannot remain indifferent to everything that is happening,” Prime Minister Rumen Radev said.

He added that the government's actions were extremely important in ensuring that the fight could be pursued.

The Prime Minister also stressed the need for closer cooperation with partner agencies and financial institutions abroad. The aim is to trace the accounts, properties and activities of Bulgarian citizens outside the country where there is evidence of non-compliance with legal requirements.

“We will do everything possible to work more intensively with our partners abroad, with their agencies and financial authorities, so that we can identify accounts, properties and activities of Bulgarian citizens abroad that are in breach of established legal norms,” Radev said.

The government announced that it had identified information, pointing to possible dependencies and the diversion of public funds in public procurement procedures for the supply of road safety barriers.

According to Ivan Demerdzhiev, the authorities had begun actively examining the supply of road safety barriers in Bulgaria. Work so far had established that four companies were involved in supplying the barriers and that these companies had “quite interesting links” leading to political figures and also to “our diplomatic representative”.

“It turned out that these companies, which have won a huge volume of public procurement contracts, use the resources in the following way. The question of how public resources are diverted has been raised many times. Some of the funds generated in this way are diverted. In this case, we established that the funds are being diverted and transferred to a company with no actual activity, which we call a ‘piggy bank company’. This 'piggy bank company' generates funds that have been used to pay for 36 flights taken by Delyan Peevski, with the value of those flights exceeding €5 million.”

What is actually happening, Demerdzhiev added, is that certain companies win public procurement contracts, part of the funds is diverted, and a large portion of those funds is used to cover expenses incurred by political leaders.

He specified that one of the companies involved in the public procurement procedures had purchased an aircraft in 2020 for BGN 36 million. The aircraft was subsequently transferred to a Maltese company to provide aviation services.

Demerdzhiev also commented on links between one of the companies and former Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov, who, according to the information presented, had leased one of his properties to the company. The government said the materials collected had been prepared jointly with Bulgarian and foreign partner agencies and would be handed over to the prosecution service, as well as to the competent partner agencies.

The cabinet expects the Prosecutor’s office to examine the information presented and take action where there are grounds to do so.

Chief Secretary of the Ministry of Interior, Chief Commissioner Lyubomir Nikolov, said that from his first day in office he had set clear objectives and tasks aimed at dismantling the oligarchic model. The Ministry of Interior is currently working on more than 900 reports concerning corruption offences, 500 of which are related to violations of the Public Procurement Act.

Minister Ivan Vasilev said that the Ministry of Innovation had been actively supporting the work of the Ministry of Interior in recent months. Numerous reports and analyses had been prepared to assist its investigations. More than 11,700 contracts involving 176 companies and 744 contracting authorities had been analysed.

“Within one or two days, we downloaded, processed and analysed all this information. Through new technologies, we are making the institutions much more effective. In addition to the analysis, we also provide recommendations on what the next steps should be. We have access to all participants in public procurement procedures – subcontractors and related persons linked to all former and current politicians at local and national level.”

Photos: BTA

Plamen Tonchev, Chairman of the State Agency for National Security (SANS), called on the Prosecutor’s office to do its job.