The son of a Bulgarian minister from the early 1990s is the ringleader of a major network for VAT draining, according to Bulgarian Minister of Interior Tsvetan Tsvetanov.

Thursday Tsvetanov gave information of an ongoing police operation against the alleged group that dealt in import of food in Bulgaria from other EU countries and with VAT fraud.

"The leader of this group is a son of a former Minsiter of Agriculture, 1992-4," said Tsvetanov at a press event in Blagoevgrad.

"Part of the group is a daughter of a former customs officer, as well as the notorious Mravkata [the Ant], a person implicated in the murder of the so-called Bay Mile," added Tsvetanov.

As is the habit of the Bulgarian police under Tsvetanov, the operation has a special codename - "The Universal Man."

"Part of the implicated criminal structures were part of political actors in the country. That way a symbiosis was created that generated an enormous financial resource," commented the minister.

Dnevnik.bg writes that in 1992-4, Bulgaria's Minister of Agriculture was Georgi Tanev, part of the expert cabinet of PM Lyuben Berov.

Tanev has been tried and acquitted, together with banker Emil Harsev, for gross managerial negligence for an import deal he concluded in 1993.