There has been no evidence that the jailed Serbian drug boss, Budimir Kujovic, paid Bulgaria's former Interior Minister, Rumen Petkov.

This has been announced Wednesday morning by Gen. Vanyo Tanov, the current Customs Agency Director, who was the head of Bulgaria’s Unit for Combating Organized Crime in 2005-2007. Petkov, the Deputy Chair of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, was the Interior Minister in 2005-2008; he resigned after the information about his meeting with the investigated Galevi Brothers leaked to the press.

The Serbian drug boss Budimir Kujovic, who has has claimed that he could carry out his criminal activities in Bulgaria because he paid top Bulgarian cops.

On September 24, Kujovic stated before the court that while he was doing business in Bulgaria he used to give money as bribe to Interior Minister Rumen Petkov and the former Chief Secretary of the Interior Ministry, Valentin Petrov. He later confirmed those statements in an interview for the TV channel bTV.

In his words, the case started after he stopped paying. He stated that his claims could be proved, because there were full records of the information exchange between him, Petrov and Petkov.

“Part of Kujovic’s claims have been proved through investigation. His claims that at certain periods he was released from jail does not surprise me because there were several institutions working on those cases, and it is part of the Bulgarian tradition to exert pressure on certain jailed persons in order to have them come up with discrediting information about public figures at a later stage”, Tanov told the Bulgarian National Radio. He also said the Kujovic case was closed for him.

In 2008, Kujovic was sentenced to 16 years in jail, and a BGN 220 000 fine for organizing and conducting drug trafficking. Three other of his associates have sentences of between 10 and 15 years, and must pay fines from BGN 100 000 to BGN 200 000.

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