Corrupt Judge, Law Professor Nabbed by Bulgarian Anti-Mafia Unit

Some Southwestern University students appear to have been passing their exams through bribes. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria's unit for combating organized crime GDBOP has shattered a corruption ring in the law department of the Southwestern University "Neofit Rilski" in the city of Blagoevgrad.

In a special operation, GDBOP arrested three men – a law professor, who is also a senior judge, and two intermediaries, for arranging passing grades for law students in exchange for sums ranging from BGN 200 to BGN 500.

Metodi Markov, professor of family and civic law at the Southwestern University in Blagoevgrad, who has been arrested for taking bribes in order to give good grades to what appear to be highly-motivated and intellectually-inspired law Bulgarian law students, is also a judge at Bulgaria's Supreme Court of Cassation.

Shortly after the arrests were made, the President of the Southwestern University, Prof. Ivan Mirchev, announced that Markov will be fired from the school, and thanked the Unit for Combating Organized Crime saying that his university has been fighting the corruption issue for years.

The two intermediaries with initials M.M. and D.V. have also been arrested. They were caught at a moment when they were transferring to Markov the sum of BGN 1 000 and the school ID numbers of five students who paid to pass their tests. The case continues to be under investigation.

This is one of the first abrupt arrests of corrupt university professors even though the popular opinion and rumors in Bulgaria have it that the "buying" of pass grades is very wide-spread in Bulgarian universities – not just in the smaller cities but also in the top schools in Sofia.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!