THE TWO ALLEGED TELEPHONE FRAUDSTERS, WHO WERE WANTED BY THE POLICE, HAVE BEEN DETAINED

The Bulgarian police detained Galya Paskaleva and Gospodin Gospodinov from the village of Gradishte, Pleven district, who were wanted by the police for alleged involvement in telephone scams.

The two surrendered to the police on 4th of August after their pictures were shown during BNT news broadcasts. Paskaleva and Gospodinov are part of the identified criminal group of Dimitar Serafimov and his cousin Serafim, who were arrested for alleged telephone scams, in which they deceived two elderly ladies from Plovdiv into giving money.

Paskaleva and Gospodinov were hired by Serafimov. Their role in the phone scam was to call victims and have long conversations with them in order to prevent the victims from calling their family members or relatives. The alleged fraudsters used SIM cards of a Romanian operator.

Atanas Iliev, the spokesperson of the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Plovdiv said that thanks to the assistance of the Bulgarian National Television, which very quickly reacted and published materials about the persons wanted by the police, they decided that there was no point to continue to hide and voluntarily surrendered to the police station in the North Bulgarian town of Levski.

The two were detained for 24 hours and will be transferred to Plovdiv.

Gospodinov has a previous conviction. Dimitar Serafimov and his cousin Serafim Serafimov also have previous criminal records. The latter was released from prison several months ago.

The spokesperson of the Regional Prosecutor’s Office in Plovdiv has explained that Serafim served five years of imprisonment in Bulgarian prisons and most of these punishments were for telephone scams. This fact will be taken into account in the qualification pressed against him, because the act he committed was in conditions of dangerous recidivism, respectively, this will affect the punishment, Iliev said.

The fraudsters may receive from 3 to 10 years of imprisonment and confiscation of half their assets.