Bulgaria to Shed Light on Shady Millionaires' Totalitarian Past

Bulgaria's Files Commission is to reveal the names of the former secret agents of the totalitarian State Security among the so-called credit millionaires, the notorious bad debtors who emerged in the country during the 90s.

The names are expected to be revealed in mid-January, Files Commission chairman Evtim Kostadinov has told the BGNES news agency.

At the end of October, Ekaterina Boncheva, member of the Commission, has disclosed that 10% of the people featuring on the list of credit millionaires, were ex-operatives.

The list contains individuals and firms, to which large sums of credits were extended by private and state-owned banks.

The unsecured credits were one of the main reasons for the crash of the Government of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the economic and financial crisis in late 1996.

The Files Commission is a panel in charge of investigating the Communist era secret files and of exposing people at senior positions as agents or collaborators of the former Communist State Security.

The blacklist of former state security agents and collaborators already features now-ex President and former Socialist leader, Georgi Parvanov, former constitutional judges, supreme magistrates, investigators, members of parliament, bishops, prominent and well-known former and current Bulgarian journalists, as well as ambassadors and diplomats abroad.