Three scientific researchers and an employee from the Bulgarian Ministry of Agriculture have been accused of participating in sexual orgies with underage boys.

The Bulgarian weekly “168 Hours” reported Friday that on August 14 the police from the Bulgarian town of Velingrad arrested the three men and a woman.

The four, accused of recruiting underage boys for sex orgies, have been Nikolay Petrov, a molecular virologist, and the PhD student Mariya Stoyanova from the Plant Protection Institute, Vasil Kovachev from the National Agricultural Advisory Services and Andon Toshev, who is a chief assistant in the Medical University in Sofia.

The regional court in Velingrad has ruled the release of Stoyanova and Petrov and release on bail of BGN 500 for the other two. However, the prosecutor, Asen Palaveev, has appealed the court's decision in the District Court in the Bulgarian city of Pazardzhik.

The case was discovered last week by the local police in Velingrad. The police have been initially working on an operation against drug distribution.

When the police officers started watching a 15-year-old boy with possession of cocaine, they thought he would lead them to an address where the drug was distributed. However, what they found was a sexual orgy between the four arrested and the boy they were watching.

The police have discovered a total of 4 boys who have been involved in the orgies by the Agriculture Ministry officials. It was found out that the boys did not come from poor families and were all with Bulgarian origins.

“The three officials will be dismissed if it is proven that they participated in a pedophile scandal. It is unacceptable to stain the name of the ministry like that,” said Miroslav Naydenov, the Bulgarian Agriculture Minister.