Bulgaria: High Profile Organized Crime Trial Begins

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Criminal proceedings begin Monday against one of Bulgaria’s highest profile organized crime syndicates in a courtroom in the capital city Sofia. Alexey Petrov, a businessman and a former employee of the State Agency for National Security (DANS) who ran for president in the October elections, faces charges of racketeering and extortion. Five others on trial with Petrov, including former prosecutor Tseko Yordanov, Marchelo Dzhotolov and Anton Petrov (known as ‘The Hamster’), were apprehended following the course of a two-year police investigation dubbed “Octopus,” referring to the ‘tentacles’ of organized crimes ever-present in public and private life.  They are also charged with prostitution, drug trafficking, money laundering, tax fraud, and embezzlement.  Another nine defendants involved in the ring are being tried in a separate case.  According to the indictment, the group had been operating since 1997.

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The court is being tried in the Sofia City Court, though experts were expecting the high-profile case to be tried in Bulgaria’s new “anti-mafia” court, which was set up specifically to hear cases on organized crime and corruption.

If Rumyana Chenalova, the chair of the magistrate team responsible for the case, decides to postpone the case until January, it is highly likely it could be transferred to the new court.

Petrov was arrested on February 10 2010, and held under house arrest until he was freed in October of the same year, when a court ruled that there was no evidence that he led an organized crime group.

His bid for the Bulgarian presidency was unsuccessful: he scored only 0.95 percent of the vote, or 30,955 votes.  The only polling station where he was a front runner was the Bobovdol prison where he tallied 19 votes.

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