Bulgarian Anti-Mafia Unit Busts Senior Civil Servants

A total of six Bulgarian officials, including Road Infrastructure Agency chief Alexander Kyosev, have been arrested in a special police operation, the Interior Ministry announced.

According to the police, the six men nabbed by Bulgaria's Unit for Combating Organized Crime GDBOP were using their positions as civil servants to prevent inspections by mobile groups for collecting road fees, thus incurring losses to the state budget.

During its special operation on Friday, GDBOP found a 40-ton discrepancy between the actual load transported by a local transport firm, and the amount declared of transported goods declared on paper.

The police operation in Sofia was staged in cooperation with the GDBOP units in Ruse, Haskovo, Pleven, and Blagoevgrad, and was led by the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office.

All six detainees are to be charged with criminal breach of trust. Besides the name of the Road Agency chief Alexander Kyusev, little information is known about the other five persons who were arrested.

The Interior Ministry said it was still calculating the losses that the criminal activity in question incurred to Bulgaria's state budget.

• 1