Lawyer of former owner of Bulgaria's collapsed Corpbank arrested

Bulgaria’s specialised prosecutor's office arrested Lazar Karadaliev, the lawyer of the former banker Tzvetan Vassilev, BNT sources said on March 18.

Karadaliev has been arrested and has already been charged as head of a criminal money laundering group, along with two other lawyers and another employee from a law firm in Sofia.

According to the evidence, the group has been operating since 2014. They used fronts to withdraw and transfer money from criminal activity through bank accounts and offshore zones.

Lawyer Karadaliev remains in custody. The other two lawyers were released on bail of BGN 150,000 each and the employee of BGN 50,000.

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Former banker and majority shareholder of Corporate Commercial Bank, Tzvetan Vassilev, is wanted in connection to the investigation into the collapse of Bulgaria’s fourth largest lender Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank).

Vassilev is in neighbouring Serbia awaiting a court ruling on an extradition request by Bulgaria.

Eighteen people faced court trial. They were charged as an organized crime group. According to the Prosecution, Tzvetan Vassilev was allegedly the leader of the criminal group. The trial against him proceeds in abstentia.

Corporate Commercial Bank, Bulgaria’s fourth-largest lender by assets at the time, was placed under special supervision of the Bulgarian National Bank on June 20, 2014, following a bank run. On 6th of November, 2014, the BNB Governing Council revoked CCB’s banking license.

The indictment for the siphoning off of Corporate Commercial Bank was filed by the Specialised Prosecutor’s Office on 20 July, 2018. All copies of the indictment included more than 210,000 pages. 18 people have been indicted. The charges pressed against them exceed 5,000 pages.