The car of the son of a journalist from a Bulgarian newspaper, who has exposed the criminal activities of a pair of mafia bosses and benefactors at the small and impoverished town of Dupnitsa, has been put on fire.

The fire-brigade managed to extinguish the fire, but say the car of Ivan Pavlov, an Audi, has been seriously damaged.

An investigation into the case has been launched.

Angel Hristov and Plamen Galev aka the "Galevi brothers" are still missing after they disappeared at the beginning of May after the Bulgarian Supreme Court of Cassation finally confirmed their organized crime sentences. The two were supposed to be sent to jail for 5 and 4 years respectively.

Speaking in an interview for Novinite.com at the end of 2010, right after Galevi brothers were acquitted of charges for leading an organized crime group, Lidia Pavlova said she fears for her life.

"I feel threatened, there is nobody to stand behind me," Lidia Pavlova told Novinite.com in a telephone interview. "To speak now is like throwing a stone into a puddle of mud and getting stains all over."

Pavlova hinted that Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov and the prosecutors should also be held responsible for losing another high-profile case against suspected mafia bosses and the standoff with organized crime generally.

"Don't ask me, ask Boyko Borisov, Tsvetan Tsvetanov and the people from the prosecution office why things are going on like this. If they say something, it would be great," she said.

Lidia Pavlova, who has fifteen years of experience as a reporter and correspondent in a number of Bulgarian newspapers, currently works for the Struma newspaper based in the southern town of Blagoevgrad, located close to Dupnitsa.

She was a prosecution witness in the trial of Plamen Galev and Angel Hristov, from whom she has received threats for her life following her investigations into their activities.

For her courageous articles Pavlova was awarded at the end of October 2009 the Prize for Courage in Journalism, established by the media group WAZ and the International Journalists Federation.

Georgi Gradevski, an associate of the Galevi brothers, was sentenced to six months of probation for beating up the son of Lidya Pavlova.