An unemployed man had acquired a business of the wealthy Bulgarian businessmen, brothers Yordan Dinev and Dinko Dinev, without having any knowledge of the transaction.

The news was reported Friday by the Bulgarian TV channel bTV, saying the man, identified only as Ivan, 58, from the village of Balvan, near the central city of Veliko Tarnovo, also unbeknown to him, had a bank and State debt estimated at BGN millions.

Ivan had never left his native village. He has been unemployed in the last four years, and has been doing odd jobs, including at the local graveyard, until days ago when he learned of his "businessman" statute.

At this point the man remembered his stepson asking him for his ID card and passport and keeping them for several months. In August, the stepson also took Ivan to the Black Sea city of Burgas twice. The firs time they met two men, the second he was taken to a notary public, who told him he was to became a shareholder.

"No one offered me money or even a drink," Ivan says.

The bTV reporters located the stepson and met him at a gas station. The latter refused to be filmed on camera and told the journalists they must use their own judgment in deciding of they would air the footage since events, way more intriguing, were about to happen.

The Dinevi brothers' lawyer says his clients have nothing to do with the scam because in February they sold their shares in the business in question to their third partner, Georgi Mihov, who has "sold" the company to Ivan.

Dinevi vowed to sue everyone who had been connecting them to the case.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!