The gun used in the recent Trakia highway encounter between police and the “Crocodiles” had also been used in at least two other crimes, according to ballistic reports.

Dimitar Mitrev was killed after he and his fellow gangsters, disguised as policemen, had stopped the car of a Turkish national. They handcuffed him, stole his money and possessions and abandoned him on Bulgaria's Trakiya highway near Vakarel.

When police intervened, the criminals had opened fire and Mitrev was killed in the following shoot-out, while his colleagues had fled the scene.

This incident was followed by intensive police action code-named “The Impudent”, resulting in a number of arrests of a large alleged kidnapping gang network.

It has been discovered that the same gun was used in the robbery of a Turkish family in Lozen village near Sofia, back in 2001, according to the Bulgarian Interior Ministry on Thursday.

It was also used in a raid almost one year ago at a Billa hypermarket in Sofia. On Decemebr 30, 2008, three armed men, again dressed as policemen, had threatened the staff late in the evening and escaped with the day’s cash takings, amounting to BGN 194 000.

Several members of the “Crocodiles” gang have now been rounded up and are in police custody, as investigations continue into allegations that they were responsible for a spate of kidnappings during the past two years.