Bulgarian Mobster Jailed for 5 Years in Top Money Laundry Trial

Sofia City Court sentenced to five years in jail Peter Petrov, dubbed Amigosa, a former associate of late underworld lord Ivan Todorov Doktora. Photo by BGNES

A Bulgarian court has sentenced to five years in jail Peter Petrov, dubbed Amigosa, putting a full stop to the largest trial for money laundering in the country.

Petrov, a former associate of late underworld lord Ivan Todorov Doktora in a financial consultancy company, brothers Doychin and Dimitar Miryanov, and Tsveta Manavska were on trial for large-scale laundry of money earned through cigarette smuggling.

Manavska, who lives in South Africa, got a three-year suspended sentence, while the two brothers were aquitted. The court also found guilty of complicity the late Ivan Todorov, who was also a defendant in the trial while he was alive.

The trial was given the go-ahead in March 2006, but was repeatedly postponed, which gave grounds for the Supreme Judicial Council to launch probes into the work of Sofia City Court.

According to prosecutors, the scam had operated since 1997. The illegal traffic channeled the Macedonia and Bulgaria and was legalized by means of false commercial contracts.

The case against Ivan Todorov, aka Doktora, was closed due to his death. The businessman, whose name became household after a miraculous bombing survival in 2003, was mercilessly killed February 22 on a busy downtown boulevard in Sofia.

Bulgaria's new center-right government, which swept the elections in July, is struggling to shake off the country's reputation for rampant corruption and crime, and has pledged to step up the fight against graft.

However, the EU newcomer has yet to convict any senior officials and has put only one criminal boss in jail.

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