Yordan Harasimov, the 52-year-old man who was blown up in his car in Varna early Friday morning, was the major trader of fish products on the Northern Bulgarian Black Sea coast, and one of the largest in Bulgaria.

This information has emerged from experts after Harasimov's murder as his car was blown up in motion. The explosion occurred at a major downtown Varna crossroads near the Varna University of Economics shortly after 8 am on Friday.

After the explosion the car, an Audi with Varna license plates, crashed into a traffic light pole. The driver, Yordan Harasimov himself, was rushed to the St. Anna Hospital but later died in the emergency room.

According to Dr. Maya Rasheva, head of the emergency service at the hospital, Harasimov had no chance of survival because of his widely opened stomach wound; in addition, his face was severed damaged.

Harasimov's company "Sever Export" trades with fish, fish products, and veined rapa whelk, a species of predatory sea snails abundant in the Black Sea. It is based in Varna's Asparuhovo quarter.

Sever Export owns its own fishing vessels, and exports frozen fish and veined rapa whelk products to Japan, the USA, South Korea, Vietnam, and Turkey.

The company's total staff is about 150 people; the Sever Export office was sealed by the police in Varna shortly after Harasimov's murder.

Sever (i.e. "North") was founded in 1995 by four partners, with Harasimov becoming the president of the firm.

The Varna car blast seems like a reminiscence of Bulgaria's mobster wars in the 1990s when former professional wrestlers dominated the powerful Bulgarian underground.

Yordan Harasimov is a former Greco-Roman wrestler and a long-time chair of the Varna Greco-Roman wrestling club "Lokomotiv 93".

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