There has been no information of any death threats against businessman Yordan Harasimov who was blown up in his car in Bulgaria's Varna Friday morning, the local police say.

According to the District Directorate of the Bulgarian Interior Ministry in Varna, there has been no indication that the business of Harasimov had any risky operations that could motivate someone to make an attempt on his life.

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.

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.

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".