BULGARIA: Little Hope against Organised Crime

By Claudia Ciobanu Reprint | | Print |

Claudia Ciobanu

BUCHAREST, Jul 20 2007 (IPS) - A recent shooting in Bulgarian capital Sofia involving Serbian Zemun clan members has brought into focus the seriousness of Bulgaria’s problems with organised crime.

Four people – two men, a woman and a six-month old baby – were injured during a shooting Jul. 11 in the Belite Brezi area in southern Sofia. The Bulgarian media announced that the two men were linked to the infamous Serbian Zemun clan, whose members were convicted for the March 2003 assassination of former prime minister Zoran Djindjic, and that the shooting was motivated by in-clan settling of scores.

The same day, another high profile shooting took place in Sofia, targeting prominent businessman Manov Velev. Velev, seriously wounded in the attack, is involved with tourism, construction, transport and gambling. He has been an ally of the governing Socialist Party, and an informal advisor to President Georgi Parvanov.

While Sofia chief prosecutor Nikolay Kokinov declared that “so far, there is nothing to link Velev to organised crime circles,” speculation has arisen that the attempt to take Velev’s live could have been caused by his conflicts with other powerful businessmen.

About 100 contract killings have taken place in Bulgaria over the past three years. Increasingly, politicians are targeted. No perpetrator has been convicted so far.

On Jun. 26, the European Commission issued its first evaluation of Bulgaria’s progress since the country joined the European Union Jan 1, 2007. The Commission stated that organised crime, high-level corruption and an inefficient justice system remain major problems in the Eastern European country.

“Contract killing continue to be of great concern, and in particular most recent killings of local politicians since January,” the Commission said. “To date no prosecution and conviction has taken place.”

According to deputy Antonii Strandjev, head of the chief directorate for combating organised crime, 48 organised crime groups control the criminal underworld in Bulgaria. The gangs are involved largely in drug trafficking, especially cocaine. Bulgaria is a crucial connecting point on the drug routes linking Asia to Europe.

“Gangs like Zemun are active in Bulgaria purely out of business rationale,” investigative journalist and author of ‘Who Killed Zoran’ Milos Vasic told IPS. Vasic says that Serbian crime lords, such as those involved in the Jul. 11 shooting, are not hiding in Bulgaria. Instead, they go there to maintain the connections between Serbia and the trafficking routes to Turkey and further into Asia.

Philip Gounev, researcher on organised crime at the Centre for the Study of Democracy in Sofia, insists that “while organised crime is a problem in Bulgaria, it is not significantly more so than in other Balkan countries.”

Gounev explains that the most serious problem Bulgaria faces is “white collar criminality”, and not so much “traditional forms” of organised crime such as drug smuggling and arms trading. “Corrupt businessman influence the political system and distort the economic system by using corrupt state officials to win public procurement contracts, evade taxes, rig privatisation or concession processes, and use the state to undermine their competitors,” Gounev told IPS.

The analyst added that such businessmen became rich during the 1990s by busting sanctions against former Yugoslavia, especially through oil smuggling. Nowadays, they use the wealth acquired then in order to perpetuate their control over the decision-making processes in the country.

The connections between underworld gangsters and white collar criminals are complicated to trace, especially since many of the former drug and arms lords are turning legitimate, under increased pressure from the legislative system and state investigators.

“EU accession has forced many of these criminals to legalise their businesses,” Philip Gounev says. One example is that of Chimimport, currently the second largest publicly listed company, owned by former racketeers based in seaside city Varna.

Under pressure from the European Union and from its own citizens, the Bulgarian government is trying to take measures against high-level crime. In June 2007, the Bulgarian Prosecutors’ Office announced that it is currently investigating 15 leaders of organised crime groups. The European Commission has praised the efforts.

But Bulgaria is not necessarily moving any closer to winning the fight against organised crime. Over the past two months at least four high-profile businessmen linked to crime groups have been released by the Sofia city court to serve house arrest or undergo medical treatment.