Bulgaria Court Leaves in Jail Suspects in 'Octopus' Mafia Case

Crime | February 12, 2010, Friday // 19:40|  views

Aleksei Petrov (middle) and the other six suspects in the Octopus mafia case have been left in jail. Photo by BGNES

Sofia City Court has decided in favor of the permanent detention of ex secret agent Aleksei Petrov and the other six suspects busted recently in the “Octopus” operation as being part of organized crime group.

Aleksei Petrov (nicknamed “The Tractor”) who is a former commando, secret agent, and advisor of the Director of Bulgaria’s State National Security Agency DANS together with Plamen Stoyanov and Yordan Stoyanov (aka the Dambovtsi Brothers), Marchelo Dzholotov, Momchil Krastev, Lozana Slavcheva, and Nikolay Velkov were all left behind bars. (More information on Aleksei Petrov is available HERE.)

A total of 14 men and women were arrested on Wednesday in the special police operation codenamed “Octopus”, which targeted a large-scale organized crime group.

According to the Prosecutors’ statements during Friday’s court hearing, they are charged with racketeering, including the forceful takeover of firms, money laundering, conducting tax evasion and VAT fraud, and enticement into prostitution.

“I have never committed any crimes and I am not going to commit any in the future,” Aleksei Petrov stated before the Court requesting that the reference information on him provided by the National Security Agency DANS should not be taken into account.

In his words, the reference documents provided by DANS are the product of his personal relations with the present heads of the Agency. The DANS reference document practically claims that Petrov is the top criminal boss in Bulgaria. However, it was not accepted by the Court which based its decision to keep all suspects behind bars on the testimonies of the several witnesses, the significance of the alleged crimes, and the early stage of the investigation.

“My arrest is politically motivated. Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov is behind him. The Prime Minister has been misled by him,” Petrov declared before and during the hearing.

The bigger part of the accusations have been based on the testimony of an employee at the S Express taxi company, better known in Bulgaria as “1280”, prosecutors said.

The woman told the investigators that Aleksei Petrov is the company's real owner and disclosed corrupt accountancy schemes in serving the leasing contracts of the taxi cabs.

All income from the company was transferred to the insurance company Lev Ins. Lev Ins is the third largest insurance company in Bulgaria, and Aleksei Petrov is a shareholder in it. It is a successor of the Levski Spartak insurance company from the late 1990s.

The Prosecutors have cited the testimonies of an anonymous witness who claims that he had been threatened by Aleksei Petrov in order to transfer 52% of his firm to one of Petrov’s associates.

Prosecutors said that during the overnight swoop in the capital Sofia, dubbed Operation Octopus, police checked locations for paid sex and interrogated a number of prostitutes and bodyguards.

All of them cited the name of Dimitar Mitov, aka Mitko the Policeman, who is believed to be a close ally to Aleksei Petrov. Following Operation Octopus Mitov ran into hiding and now is being wanted by the police.

According to prosecutors the money earned at the sex clubs were handed over to Anton Petrov, aka the Hamster, who passed it over to Aleksei Petrov.

The group is also suspected of siphoning off funds from now insolvent steelmaker Kremikovtzi.

The accusations linked to the steel mill have been based on the testimonies of a number of witnesses, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Witnesses said that Aleksei Petrov kept an office at Kremikovtzi, even though he has never been officially appointed. Following an order to leave the building, he threatened the then director of the company Alexander Tomov.

According to witnesses, a firm owned by the Dambovtsi Brothers and controlled by Aleksei Petrov provided security services for the company, which paid him BGN 700,000 each month. After the contract of Petrov’s firm was terminated, the troubled Kremikovtzi plant started paying only BGN 300 000 monthly for the same service to another company. An anonymous witness claims that Petrov threatened the former CEO of Kremikovtzi Alexander Tomov, when Tomov moved to terminate the security contract.

According to another witness, Petrov threatened an executive by saying, “ I am one of the most powerful men in the country, and I can kill you right here, right now.”

The crimes of which Aleksei Petrov and the other defendants are accused have been committed in the period 1997-2010.

In addition to claiming that the entire Octopus Operation is aimed at discrediting him, Aleksei Petrov has emphasized the fact that he had had to infiltrate Kremikovtzi, the taxi company S Express, and other firms in his capacity as a secret agent of the Bulgarian intelligence services. For that, he had to maintain a certain image but these connections are now used in order to incriminate him, in his own words.

Of all defendants, he said he knew only Momchil Krastev. The Prosecutors, however, believe that there is sufficient evidence to prove the incriminating connections between all seven suspects.

“I have no intention of becoming a secret agent but if I would, I would probably give it up after seeing this. Think about the signal that this case sends to all those who would like to work in Bulgaria’s national security services,” Aleksei Petrov’s lawyer Ina Lulcheva said in support of the ex secret agent’s claims that his work for the state was now being used against him.

She has pointed out that in the last few years, a number of signals against Aleksei Petrov have been submitted to the former Chief Prosecutor Nikola Filchev and the present Chief Prosecutor Boris Velchev, to the President, and to other institutions but that he had not been discovered to have committed any violations.

Earlier on Friday, US Ambassador to Bulgaria, James Warlick, has congratulated the Borisov government of the conduction of the Octopus special operation saying that Bulgarians should be proud of it, and denying any involvement of the US intelligence in it.

You can find more information on Aleksei Petrov and the Octopus special operation, and follow the trial of the suspects follow in our Crime section on the Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) website.

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Tags: Octopus, Aleksei Petrov, Sofia City Court, jailed, arrest

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