Bulgaria's Customs Agency director Vanyo Tanov has declared that the two new discrediting tapes of his phone conversations with key MPs leaked to the public Monday are totally fake.

The tapes were disclosed by the conservative Order, Law and Justice (RZS) party. The party's leader, Yane Yanev, warned that during their regular Friday press conference RZS would play for reporters the full recordings, unless until then, media and political parties, who already have the copies, would find the courage to publish them.

The tapes of phone conversations are said to reveal how two key MPs from the ruling party GERB – Menda Stoyanova and Iskra Fidosova – pressured Tanov to appoint certain persons that he believes to be outright criminals to head local customs offices.

"I have had conversations with these two MPs but nothing of what I see published is true," Tanov told the bTV channel late on Monday.

He believes that the tapes have been forged by putting together words taken out of context.

"At the end of the day, it became clear that only the GERB Cabinet did not make a single political appointment in the customs... This means that no pressure can influence me. This confirms one more time the words of the PM that he has given me a blank check and that I am responsible for every single appointment, and that I will not let anybody who doesn't meet the criteria to be appointed. This probably hurts the interests of many people," Tanov said when asked about the recent scandals with his tapped telephone conversations.

The latest news flared even more the scandal triggered by three tapes of discrediting conversations between Tanov and his superiors – Finance Minister Simeon Dajnkov and Deputy Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov –  which were released at a news conference last Wednesday by the Galeria weekly, a paper believed to be the mouthpiece of Aleksei Petrov, former special agent of the State National Security Agency DANS, (currently under house arrest), who has been investigated on organized crime charges since his arrest in the much advertised "Operation Octopus" in February 2010.

Meanwhile, also on Monday, RZS started their nation-wide campaign under the motto "Stop the Spying! You Can!"

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