Prosecutor’s Office Pressed Charges against Arrested Police Chief in Plovdiv

The Prosecutor’s Office will press charges for bribery against the deputy head of third police station in Plovdiv, Stoyan Pavlov, the spokesperson of the Chief Prosecutor Roumyana Arnaudova said on 12^th of October. Pavlov was detained on suspicions for involvement in telephone frauds scheme.

Pavlov was arrested by officials of Internal Security department on 11^th of October following a series of telephone frauds in Plovdiv and the region in the past 10 days, in which many old people have fallen victims to telephone fraudsters.

He was allegedly hiding a telephone fraudsters group and accepted 300 BGN from them. The money was given by an elderly person who handed over to the conmen the sum of 1300 BGN. Pavlov was detained for 72 hours. It is expected that the prosecution would ask the court for a detention on remand.

The investigation identified that the policeman Stoyan Pavlov was a close friend of one of the telephone fraudsters. Callers pretended they were police officers who asked elderly people to help in the detection of a telephone fraud. Pavlov had information about the scheme, but instead of informing the police, he helped the criminals in exchange for a fee.

Rumen Popov, District Prosecutor of Plovdiv says Pavlov consulted the perpetrators and some of the witnesses, held meetings with them. After the detention of the so-called mules in the most recent fraud case in which the fraudsters conned the victims out of 1300 BGN, it was identified that the policeman Stoyan Pavlov was involved. In general, he gave the criminals promises to help them if they had problems with the police or anyone else.

Two of the participants in the last fraud were detained. One of them was the courie, carrying the money and has already been charged, the other one was a driver and a witnesses in the case. The third participant in the scheme who is close to the former police chief is currently wanted. According to the director of Plovdiv police, Pavlov bears personal responsibility for his actions, and it was not a question of low control.

If found guilty, the law provides for imprisonment from 3 to 10 years.