The head of the Bulgarian Customs Agency and her deputy have been detained

The head of the Customs Agency Petya Bankova and her deputy Lyudmil Marinov have been detained for 24 hours under the Law on the Ministry of Interior, BNT learned on April 3. The total number of detainees is seven.

The pre-trial proceedings were initiated for an organised crime group for the purpose of smuggling, money laundering and bribery. Seven people have been detained so far, including the head of the Customs Agency Petya Bankova, her deputy Lyudmil Marinov and two men, father and son from Haskovo, Stefan and Marin Dimitrov, who were allegedly involved mainly in cigarette smuggling. More than 20 addresses have been searched, and a property near Pazardzhik is currently being searched, where a truck full of cigarettes without excise labels was found. The property of Nikolay Nikolov - Paskal has also been searched and cigarettes without excise labels were found, which matched the cigarettes found in the truck. A drug was also found in Nikolov's properties which reacted to cocaine in the field test, but an expert was appointed to confirm this.