Bulgaria’s specialised prosecutor's office, together with the State Agency for National Security and the State Agency for Combating Organised Crime, conducted procedural investigations on the territory of the cities of Sofia, Pleven, Blagoevgrad, Razgrad, Haskovo, Plovdiv and Lovech, the prosecutor’s office announced on 18th of January.

The subject of the investigation is the activity of a group of foreign citizens in organising and realising on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria unregulated money transfers in and out of the country in particularly large amounts under the so- "hawaia" method within an international organised criminal group.

43 persons were detained for a term of up to 24 hours in the course of the investigation.

It was identified that the main organizer of the criminal activity was a Syrian citizen residing in Bulgaria. He was detained in Sofia, reported the Bulgarian National Television.