Minister of Interior: Operation Is Underway in Varna; 12 Detained, Including Two Senior Customs Officials

An operation targeting tax offences linked to the import of goods from China is currently under way in the coastal city of Varna. Customs officials and companies are both implicated, Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev told reporters on November 5.

The goods are being imported either illegally or at artificially low declared prices, resulting in significant losses to the state budget, he added. Several people have also been detained.

Ivan Demerdzhiev, Minister of the Interior: “Two of those detained are senior customs officials. I am referring only to customs officers; the other people detained during the operation are representatives of the companies involved in these practices. I want to make it absolutely clear that such operations will continue. No one should labour under the illusion that employees of state institutions are somehow immune from investigation. On the contrary, every such institution exposed to the risk of corruption will remain under our constant scrutiny.”

Demerdzhiev added that there was currently no evidence of political protection. He said the full scale of the fraud was yet to be established, but that the losses to the public purse were substantial.