Sofia City Court acquitted Thursday the Milev brothers, known as members of the 'Crocodile' highway robbery gang.

Emil and Evgeni Milev were accused August 11, 2004 of stopping a van on the Bulgarian 'Hemus' highway, pretending to be policemen, and robbing all four people inside it of their mobile phones and personal belongings.

In 2007 the Sofia Regional Court acquitted the two brothers of the robbery charges while this Thursday the Sofia City Court upheld the ruling.

In December 2008, the District Court found Emil Milev - Croci, Evgeni Milev - Geyzo and their accomplice Kaloyan Batsov guilty of a yet another highway robbery. The court sentenced the men to 12 years in prison on charges that, on June 11, 2004, near the village of Gorno Kamartsi, the three men had stolen goods worth EUR 1 500.

However, in October 2009, Sofia Court of Appeal had acquitted the defendants.

The names of the two brothers Milevi came to the fore again in December 2009, when police thwarted the robbery of a Turkish national on the Trakiya highway near Vakarel. In the subsequent shootout, one man that the police claimed to be an accomplice of the Crocodiles was killed.