Portugal Extradites Notorious Bulgarian Killer

Crime | January 6, 2012, Friday // 17:04
Portugal Extradites Notorious Bulgarian Killer: Portugal Extradites Notorious Bulgarian Killer Notorious Bulgarian Mobster, Plamen Dishkov aka Kela. Photo by Monitor daily

Plamen Dishkov aka Kela, 34, a Bulgarian mobster sentenced for a gangland murder committed in 2002, had been extradited from Portugal, and arrived at Sofia airport Thursday evening.

The news was reported Friday by the Bulgarian Interior Ministry.

Kela was arrested in Cascais, Portugal in August this year after 10 years in international hiding, based on a European arrest warrant.

34-year-old Kela (born in Burgas in 1976) disappeared on November 22, 2002, a day after the murder of Dimitar Stamatov aka Mastera, a businessman dealing with meat production who was gunned down in front his hotel under construction in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Burgas.

In 2007, the Burgas Appellate Court sentenced Plamen Dishkov in absentia to 20 years in jail for ordering and acting as an accomplice in the murder, after it was proven that Kela committed the murder together with two other men.

Before that, in 2004, Kela was acquitted on charges of plotting the murder by the Burgas Regional Court, which said that there was not enough evidence linking him to the crime.

Kela, a well-known brutal young mobster who is believed to be a representative of the Bulgarian criminal empire SIC along Bulgaria's southern Black Sea coast in the mid and late 1990s, was revealed to have received USD 10 000 for contracting Stamatov's murder.

The murder itself was directly committed by Boyko Stoyanov, who also received a 20-year sentence in 2007; the third man, Todor Nedelchev, was sentenced to 16 years in jail as an accomplice.

Long before Kela's sentence was announced, however, just days after Stamatov's murder, he fled by plane to Poland. Since then Kela is rumored to have been hiding in Germany, France, the USA, and Cyprus.

Kela has been wanted by Interpol since December 12, 2002, and with a European arrest warrant since July 18, 2008.

Dishkov's career is emblematic for many of the medium-level mobsters in Bulgaria in the 1990s, which was marked by the war for control of the country between two criminal empires – VIS (later VIS-2) and SIC.

Kela is a graduate of the Burgas Sports High School specializing in boxing. His qualities are said to have led to his quick growth in the underground in Burgas, and he quickly got very rich in the late 1990s, moving subsequently to legalize his wealth through fuel trade, real estate business, bars, and trade with agricultural products.

Back in January 2001, two lower-ranking SIC mobsters were killed in Burgas in an bomb attack in a bar that was believed to have been targeting Kela, who was only lightly wounded, and was reported to have been hidden by family members and local police to keep him alive.

The attack against Kela is believed to have organized by rival mafia boss Dimitar Zhelyazkov, aka Mityo Ochite ("The Eyes") (who is currently imprisoned on organized crime charges), in response to an earlier attack Kela staged against Zhelyazkov killing his ex-wife and her brother.

In April 2011, Kela made headlines in absentia when his father Kolyo Dishkov demolished himself Kela's luxury three-story sea view villa, which was proven to have been built illegally for at least EUR 100 000.

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

Crime » Be a reporter: Write and send your article
Tags: Plamen Dishkov, Kela, mobster, Murder, Portugal, INTERPOL, Dimitar Stamatov, Mastera, Burgas, mobster, SIC

Advertisement
Advertisement
Bulgaria news Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) is unique with being a real time news provider in English that informs its readers about the latest Bulgarian news. The editorial staff also publishes a daily online newspaper "Sofia Morning News." Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency - www.sofianewsagency.com) and Sofia Morning News publish the latest economic, political and cultural news that take place in Bulgaria. Foreign media analysis on Bulgaria and World News in Brief are also part of the web site and the online newspaper. News Bulgaria