More than BGN 3000 were stolen in an armed robbery of a car shop in the neighbourhood of Druzhba in the Bulgarian capital early on Friday morning.

According to preliminary information, four masked robbers arrived with a car to the showroom.

Three of the armed robbers got off the car and tried to enter the building by opening the door. Failing to do so, they broke the window.

The robbers stole the coffer on the first floor and took it to the car. They then returned for a second coffer on the second floor, but the security guards heard them and one of them armed with a rubber bullets rifle opened fire at them.

One of the security guards, a sixty-year-old man, was shot by the robbers. He has been admitted to hospital without threat for his life.

The security guards continued to chase the robbers on the streets. The police took immediate actions to find the car with which the robbers fled the scene.

About half an hour later the car was found abandoned and set on fire in the neighbourhood of Serdika.

The fire was extinguished by firefighters. The authorities established that the car had been stolen in December last year and the licence plates placed on it had belonged to another vehicle.

The empty metal coffer was found in the car boot. The second coffer, which the robbers did not manage to steal, contained more than BGN 30 000.

This is the latest in a series of large-scale armed robberies which has taken place across Bulgaria since the beginning of the year and comes only a couple of days after more than BGN 11 000 were stolen from casino in the southern town of Krichim.

Last month, BGN 1.8 M were stolen from the central post office in Haskovo. None of the robbers has been identified or detained yet.