Sofia Prosecutor: Bulgaria Kidnappers to Get 15 Years in Jail Each

Sofia City Prosecutor Nikolay Kokinov called the busting of the kidnappers' gang the hit of the year. Photo by BGNES

The bosses of the Bulgarian kidnappers’ gang which was busted in “The Impudent” special operation on Thursday are going to be behind bars for the next 15 years at least.

This has been stated by Nikolay Kokinov, the Sofia City Prosecutor, who made it clear that the Prosecutor’s Office was going to do its best to guarantee permanent detention for the criminal bosses who are responsible for at least 12 (and maybe more) of the 19 high-profile abductions in Bulgaria in the last two years.

Kokinov said the Prosecutor’s Office had not estimated how much money the gangsters made through the kidnappings but they got at least several hundred thousand Euro of ransom in each case.

The Sofia City Prosecutor said that the majority of the 25 detainees had auxiliary functions such as receiving the ransom money, driving, or providing food for the victims.

“The gang made mistakes after every single abduction. We caught them exactly by analyzing these mistakes,” Kokinov said making it clear that there was compelling evidence against the kidnappers’ gang.

He explained that a number of witnesses had been interrogated so far, special intelligence devices had been used, the premises used by the kidnappers had been found and searched, DNA samples had been taken showing that is where the victims were kept.

“I am not going to say who betrayed them, let them shiver in fear of the unknown. The court hearing for their permanent detention will most likely be on Saturday so we I don’t want to help their lawyers by telling them what we’ve got,” Nikolay Kokinov stated when asked if the police had an informer within the gang. On Thursday Bulgaria’s Interior Minister Tsvetanov said the police used the help of a criminal who cooperated.

“One of the greatest blows on organized crime of the year is the destruction of this gang,” the Prosecutor said.

Meanwhile, Bulgaria’ Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said the Bulgarian police had not carried out such a perfectly organized special operation in years. The officers made the 25 arrests at 16 locations around the country, starting at 6 am Thursday and ending at 6:15 am taking the criminals totally by surprise.

Tsvetanov believes that the previously existing competition between the Interior Ministry and the State National Security Agency DANS prevented the earlier busting of the gang. He said the Ministry had recently created a very robust team with three officers from the Unit for Combating Organized Crime GDBOP, the Sofia Police Directorate, and DANS, which did a perfect job on the case.

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