Rebel against Bulgaria Town Mafia Landlords Runs for Mayor

A key witness against a notorious pair of suspected mafia bosses and virtual landlords of the town of Dupnitsa, 55 km south of Sofia, has dared to run for its mayor.

Plamen Milanov, a local small taxi firm owner, will run on the ticket of the left-wing ABV (ABC) movement, founded and headed by outgoing Socialist President Georgi Parvanov.

"I just want to help the town drag itself out of the crisis it has sunk into," said Milanov, one of the very few, who has openly disobeyed the two local mafia bosses Plamen Galev and Angel Hristov, known as the Galevi brothers.

He will seek to oust Atanas Yanev, current mayor of Dupnitsa, widely considered to be a puppet in the hands of the Galevi Brothers. Their power has been so all-encompassing that people across the country started to refer to Dupnitsa as "Galevgrad" (Galevville) or the "first private town".

Plamen Galev and Angel Hristov were charged with extortion and racketeering. They have made headlines over the last few years as self-proclaimed benefactors of Dupnitsa, an impoverished and dilapidated Bulgarian town at the foot of the Rila mountain, and as failed runners in the summer general elections.

The Bulgarian government however lost the high-profile case against them.

Plamen Milanov was one of more than thirty people, who took the witness stand two years ago when the court in the south-western town of Kyustendil resumed the trial against the local mafia bosses, only to find them eventually not guilty.

Back then the owner of a taxi cab company claimed to have been forced to pay BGN 1 500 each month to the brothers so that his cabs continue operating undisturbed.

"I paid the tax for a period of three years – from 2003 till the end of 2006," Plamen Milanov said in the court room.

Milanov explained that after his acquisition of a second taxi cab company at the end of 2006, the brothers forced him to pay them a half of its revenues and demanded that they hold a 50% stake in it.

According to him the two alleged mafia bosses hold the citizens of Dupnitsa on a leash as their jobs and prosperity depend on the two burly former policemen with shady background and businesses.

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