In a video call from Dubai, gambling businessman Vassil Bozhkov gave details of his blackmail allegations against former Prime Minister

During an interview with Bulgarian reporters in a video conference call from the United Arab Emirates on March 24, gambling businessman Vassil Bozhkov, said he was questioned by the European Prosecutor's Office on March 8 and shortly before that he had given information to the Ministry of Interior about his allegations of blackmail by former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov.

Bozhkov alleged that from 2017 to the end of 2019. he had handed over more than 60 million leva to former Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov and former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, and the intermediary in the transfer of the money was GERB PR Sevdelina Arnaudova.

A week ago, the Ministry of Interior detained Borissov, Goranov and Arnaudova for 24 hours on the blackmail signal. The gambling businessman is investigated for 19 crimes in Bulgaria.

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"I did not know about this operation in advance. Secondly, the European Prosecutor's Office found me because I am not hiding in Dubai. This is another version that is constantly being circulated by politicians and prosecutors – that I am hiding in Dubai. Do I appear to be hiding? How did you find me for this press conference, the Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office can't find me? The European Prosecutor’s Office found me and questioned me. Boyko Borissov called me first, as I have said many times. Then he sent me to Menda (referring to Menda Stoyanova, former head of the parliamentary finance and budget committee), who did the job he assigned to her, then he sent me to Vladi (referring to Vladislav Goranov, former Minister of Finance) to tell me what I had to give, then it all went to Vladi to take to Boyko (referring to former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov) or to split with Boyko. How they divided the money between them, whether they divided it, I can't know, but nobody has complained that I didn't do what they asked," said Vassil Bozhkov.

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Once considered to be the wealthiest Bulgarian person, Vassil Bozhkov lost his gambling business in early 2020 when Parliament passed the amendments to the Gambling Act thus banning lottery games organised by private operators.

On January 29, 2020, the Prosecutor’s Office pressed charges against Bozhkov on seven counts and then in February charged him with more, thus the criminal charges against him adding up to 18. He has been charged with evasion of more than 700 million BGN in gambling licensing fees, money laundering, extortion, bribery, murder, abetting in murder, attempted rape, leading an organized crime group, trading in influence, and unlawful possession of cultural assets. The businessman left the country prior to completion of the inquiries and is now in the United Arab Emirates, from where Bulgaria is seeking his extradition.

In mid May, 2020, he published on Facebook text messages that he claims to have exchanged with the then Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov. According to the messages, Minister Goranov gave “valuable instructions” to Maria Filipova, predecessor of the former Chairman of the State Gambling Commission Alexander Georgiev, in favour of Vassil Bozhkov. In the second text message Bozhkov complains that the then State Gambling Commission sabotaged the activity of his gambling company and received an answer that the problem will be solved.

In a series of disclosures on Facebook after that, Vassil Bozhkov alleged that he had been forced by the then PM Borissov and then Finance Minister Goranov to pay them 20% of his business proceeds, that he had tried to sell half of his lottery business to a Czech company for 1 billion BGN but the then Prime Minister and the then Finance Minister tried to make him transfer a majority interest in it to a person named by them, and that they had attacked his business when he declined to do what they said.

Bozhkov said he had formally alerted the Prosecutor’s office and the chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev confirmed that the alert had been assigned to a prosecutor for investigation. According to the alert, between 2017 and the end of 2019 Bozhkov paid 60 million BGN personally to the then Prime Minister and the then Finance Minister as they demanded.

Regarding Bozhkov’s claims that Sevdelina Arnaoudova, then head of the government press office, had visited his office every month in the past years, the PM responded that he never sent her there.

Arnaoudova herself responded that since she has been working for the government all her meetings with businessmen have been recorded and that her last meeting with Bozhkov was when he visited GERB's headquarters together with the head of bTV, Florian Skala.

"I've never sent anyone, I've never been there and I don't want to be part of this game," Borissov said. Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said that Bozhkov's allegations are manipulative and aim to discredit the government. "If he has evidence, he'd better present it and end this circus," Goranov said at the time.

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