A telephone fraudster, who asked for charity money in the name of Bulgarian first lady, Zorka Parvanova, has been arrested after a police investigation that lasted over 18 months.

The arrested 29-year-old man from Shumen in Eastern Bulgaria has been convicted eight times for fraud committed in Sofia, Razgrad and Shumen. He revealed that he acted alone without accomplices.

The scheme involved the man using a computer program to make his voice sound like a woman before ringing large companies to ask for BGN 300 for a charity to help orphans and needy children.

The first report of his activities were from August 15 2008 and the last on 18 January 2010 when a large computer firm boss reported a fraudulent phone call to the police. The man, pretending to be a business woman in charge of a charity run my Parvanova, had again requested BGN 300 to help an orphan gain a scholarship to the US.