Prosecutor's office terminates Barcelonagate money laundering case over lack of evidence

Due to lack of evidence of a crime, the State Prosecutor's Office on October 17 terminated the investigation into an organised criminal group for the purchase of a property in Barcelona, Kingdom of Spain, also known as Barcelonagate. The case involved the name of GERB leader and former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, who is currently an MP of GERB-UDF.

In the prosecutor's office ruling, they have also analysed in detail all the features and circumstances that, according to the law, must be present in order to justify the indictment of a criminal group.

In the course of the investigation, no evidence was gathered from which a single and definite conclusion could be drawn that the real estate located in Barcelona was purchased with money obtained from a criminal offence.

It is established from the documentary, oral and physical evidence that the acquisition of the property for the sum of EUR 2 900 000 in Barcelona by St. А. Chaushev was made under a contract with the trading company T. Т. С". According to the documentary evidence annexed, at the relevant time, i.e. March 2013, the company had the cash to purchase the property in question, which it had acquired from its commercial activities. For the reasons set out above, the supervising prosecutors have concluded that there is no evidence of an offence under Article 253 para. 1 of the Criminal Code (money laundering) in respect of the immovable property in question.

At the same time, prior to the termination of the criminal proceedings, the supervising prosecutors had separated the materials into a separate investigation for four offences, namely - money laundering regarding the capital increase of a Spanish trading company; money laundering for transfers between individuals with the initials R.R. and B.J.; money laundering for the purchase of real estate in the Republic of Turkey and for an unfavourable transaction regarding the sale of shares of a trading company.

The witness statements do not contain allegations for B. Borisov to have personally or through an intermediary commissioned the transaction in March 2013 for the purchase of real estate in Spain - a house with an adjacent area and a swimming pool, located in the Barcelona, and to have provided property for its purchase in the amount of nearly 3 million euros. There are no allegations that he instructed anyone else to conceal the actual rights, or that the witness Borisov instructed the property to be deeded, or that he personally or through an intermediary instructed the transfer of currency for the purpose of renting another immovable property - a shop in Barcelona, in the Kingdom of Spain.

The supervising prosecutors have concluded that the allegations of independent actions of Borissov, namely that the latter had purchased the house in Barcelona, contained in the testimonies of witnesses Chenalova and Bakalova, are not of a nature to substantiate the accusatory thesis with the necessary degree of firmness. Their analysis reveals that they do not provide specific, categorical and consistent evidence concerning essential elements of the composition of the offence under Article 321 of the Criminal Code. In these parts, the testimonies of the witnesses in question are unspecific and inconsistent, presented in a summarising and declarative form, their testimonies have the character of an assumption and are based on an analysis carried out by the witnesses themselves of their subjective impressions of facts and circumstances which cannot be verified in the course of the pre-trial proceedings by the relevant procedural means. The evidence of the two witnesses is not corroborated by the other evidence in the case.

From the accounting assesments in the case, in the part analysing the movements in the accounts of B. Borisov, no transactions relevant to the present proceedings were found. It is clear from the expert's conclusion that the house in Barcelona was purchased with the funds of a commercial company with the object of organising and carrying out domestic and international tourism and related tourist services, etc.

The prosecutors also found that the evidence in the case did not contain any relevant information about prior agreements of a criminal nature, about a lasting and stable agreement between three or more persons to commit in concert the offence under Article 253, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code - money laundering. "In the course of the criminal proceedings, no evidence has been gathered from which a categorical conclusion can be drawn that real estate was purchased with funds obtained from a crime," the ruling of the State Prosecutor's Office said. The existence of criminal links between a group of persons - Bulgarian citizens, including B. Borisov, cannot be judged from the information contained in the materials received through European investigation warrants to the Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of Cyprus.

In view of the lack of evidence of a crime, the prosecutors from the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office terminated the pre-trial proceedings initiated for alleged participation in an organized criminal group.

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