Files with classified information have been found in the offices of former secret agent Aleksei Petrov during the recent special operation of the Bulgarian police codenamed “Octopus.”

This was announced Saturday by Bulgaria’s Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov who said the circles close to Aleksei Petrov had access to political and economic classified information of the highest level.

In his words, there has been a real possibility that the state could be destabilized by those with access to the classified documents.

“The files found in the offices of the Spartak pool complex contain classified information and are not supposed to there. This tells us that everything in the state was up for grabs. People of the highest levels have taken advantage of this information,” Tsvetanov said.

Aleksei Petrov was arrested together with 13 other people on February 10 in Operation Octopus when police searched his offices at the Spartak pool complex together with a number of other premises around Sofia.

Interior Minister Tsvetanov has explained that the “Octopus” gang had drained a number of companies by first infiltrating them through small-scale shareholders, then taking them over, and eventually draining all their assets.

“The fight against organized crime is just starting. The state is a debtor to its taxpayers,” Tsvetanov has declared.