'Bulgaria Phone Scammers Rob, Blackmail Elderly'
Brazen Bulgarian gangs "terrorise the elderly and rob them over their life savings with increasingly aggressive phone scams nettling millions of euros," according to an AFP story.
From The Financial Times
By Kerin Hope
East European states keen to improve their credential in battling corruption are constantly promising to re-double their efforts. New laws are passed, new investigative units established and new officials appointed to fight the good fight.
But all struggle to deliver what really matters – high-level convictions. So, all eyes are now on Bulgaria where Alexander Tomov, a former deputy prime minister and one-time boss of CSKA, a leading Sofia football club, was this week found guilty of fraud. Could this be a defining moment?
Tomov was sentenced to nine years in jail on Wednesday by a Sofia city court for selling off plots of land owned by Kremikovtzi, a collapsing steel producer, at well below the market price.
He was also found guilty of embezzling ?7.5m while serving as the company's chief executive after it was taken over by Global Steel Holdings, controlled by Pramod Mittal – a younger brother of the Indian steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal.
Tomov is the first senior Bulgarian politician to be sentenced on corruption charges. Yet he will remain free pending appeal – a process that could last years under the country's slow-moving judicial system.
Some observers in Sofia claim he was an easy target – a discredited player from the 1990s who became deeply unpopular with ordinary Bulgarians after CSKA was banned from European competition under his management.
"Tomov had been on the periphery of politics for a long time....He wasn't a big fish," said Ognian Shentov, head of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, a Sofia thinktank.
Bulgaria may be a European Union member (since 2007), but its reputation in western Europe for being soft on corruption is unlikely to change until the Sofia courts convict somebody more important. The Tomov verdict is only a start.
We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!
Brazen Bulgarian gangs "terrorise the elderly and rob them over their life savings with increasingly aggressive phone scams nettling millions of euros," according to an AFP story.
The prospect of US President Donald Trump's moving closer to Russia has scrambled the strategy of "balancing East and West" used for decades by countries like Bulgaria, the New York Times says.
Bulgarians have benefited a lot from their EU membership, with incomes rising and Brussels overseeing politicians, according to a New York Times piece.
German businesses prefer to trade with Bulgaria rather than invest into the country, an article on DW Bulgaria's website argues.
The truth about Bulgaria and Moldova's presidential elections is "more complicated" and should not be reduced to pro-Russian candidates winning, the Economist says.
President-elect Rumen Radev "struck a chord with voters by attacking the status quo and stressing issues like national security and migration," AFP agency writes after the presidential vote on Sunday.
UN Happiness Report: Bulgaria's Astonishing Leap in Rankings
Bulgaria: 3 Regions With Lowest Life Expectancy - EU Report 2022