Bulgarian crimelords and their associates are focusing on whistleblower journalists exposing hyperlinks between OneCoin, Bulgarian organized crime and native authorities.
As an alternative of investigating OneCoin and the continued legal actions surrounding the Ponzi scheme, Lawyer Common Ivan Geshev frames whistleblower stories as “an alleged plot to incriminate him and high-ranking magistrates and cops”.
Whereas I disagree with the synopsis that Ruja Ignatova was murdered on a yacht in 2018, again in February a report from BIRD offered damning proof of corruption and safety of criminals by Bulgarian authorities.
On the heart of the “Ruja was killed on a yacht” concept is Bulgarian crimelord Christophoros Amanatidis-Taki, who’s believed to be hiding out in Dubai.
BIRD’s report claimed Taki ordered the hit on Ruja Ignatova.
Taki ordered the homicide of the cryptoqueen Ruja Ignatova, which occurred in November 2018 on a yacht within the Ionian Sea, greater than a yr after as Ruja was final seen in Athens.
The physique of the murdered lady was lower up and thrown into the water.
BIRD’s reporting relies on a leaked police report from the protected of Lyubomir Ivanov, former head of the legal division of Bulgaria’s Nationwide Police.
Ivanov was shot lifeless below murky circumstances in March 2022.
Taki is nice pals with Mikhail Naumov, head of Bulgaria’s Federal Murder Division.
The paperwork additionally element quite a few luxurious yacht journeys taken by Mikhail Naumov and his household, all purportedly funded by Taki and his associates.
When Hen offered the paperwork to Bulgarian authorities, Public Prosecutors verified them as genuine however clarified no person was investigating Ignatova’s dying or corruption linked to Naumov.
Since then BIRD’s reporter behind the article, Dimitar Stoyanov and Atanas Tchobanov, have been sued by Razmig Kerope “Ami” Chakaryan.
Chakaryan, who wasn’t talked about in BIRD’s reporting, is an affiliate of Taki’s.
Charkaryan filed two lawsuits in opposition to BIRD journalist Dimitar Stoyanov and three in opposition to BIRD editor-in-chief Atanas Tchobanov.
A sixth lawsuit was filed in opposition to Nikolay Marchenko from Bivol.bg.
All six lawsuits are understood to have been filed on the Sofia District Courtroom and every demanded BGN 10,000 (5,130 euros) for alleged defamation and “ethical injury”.
All lawsuits have been introduced in opposition to the person journalists, reasonably than their media retailers.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Venture (OCCRP), of which BIRD is a member group of, claims Chakaryan lawsuits are strategic lawsuits in opposition to public participation (SLAPPs).
The Worldwide Press Institute claims the lawsuits “clearly signify retaliatory and vexatious authorized actions supposed to strain reputable watchdog reporting.”
Consistent with Chakaryan’s lawsuits, Bulgarian authorities are additionally focusing on Stoyanov and Tchobanov.
As reported by the Worldwide Press Institute, on March sixteenth Lawyer Common Ivan Geshev held a press-conference
describ(ing) reporting by journalists as a part of an alleged plot to incriminate him and the high-ranking magistrates and cops.
Whereas Geshev didn’t establish the journalists straight, a display behind him projected the names of Tchobanov and Stoyanov.
Geshev’s workplace adopted up with an seventh press-release, by which they printed unredacted correspondence between Dimitar Stoyanov and a confidential supply.
In response to Geshev’s workplace leaking protected correspondence, the Bulgarian division of the Affiliation of European Journalists issued a press-release on April tenth;
The self-serving publication by the prosecutor’s workplace of photographs from the communication of journalist Dimitar Stoyanov is an unscrupulous violation of the confidentiality of journalistic sources.
Journalists speaking to sources is just not a criminal offense by default. The dramaturgical building “organized legal group to discredit the chief prosecutor” can’t justify such a scandalous motion, which, aside from placing Stoyanov at risk, is a warning to each journalist and his sources.
Stoyanov’s leaked supply has since been arrested on drug possession prices. OCCRP stories the arrest got here
shortly earlier than he was about to offer an interview to Stoyanov concerning the function of an individual near Taki and named within the paperwork.
Geshev’s workplace is utilizing the drug possession arrest to assert Stoyanov and different Bulgarian journalists are working with
an organized legal group established for the aim of acquiring proceeds from legal actions, cash laundering and tax crimes
On April thirteenth Geshev’s workplace introduced it has initiated a legal investigation and pre-trial proceedings.
The Committee to Shield Journalists moreover reported on April twenty fourth;
The prosecutor’s workplace introduced that it had began a pretrial investigation into an unidentified variety of members of “an organized legal group” who allegedly participated in affect peddling to “discredit and hinder” legislation enforcement and senior authorities officers.
These convicted face a jail sentence of as much as six years.
A number of weeks after the legal investigation announcement, Geshev was the goal of a purported failed assassination try.
Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev has escaped unscathed after a big explosion occurred Monday close to his automotive which the authorities have described as a focused assault on him.
Attackers had positioned a bomb at a bend within the highway the place visitors needed to gradual, Borislav Sarafov, head of the Nationwide Investigation Service, mentioned based on native information website Mediapool.
They detonated the bomb at precisely the second Geshev’s automotive went previous, he mentioned, describing it as a “professionally ready try, and clearly properly executed.”
“Clearly the bomb was supposed to kill,” he mentioned. Nonetheless, there have been no accidents.
No group has claimed accountability for Monday’s alleged assault.
How handy.
OneCoin launched in 2014 and grew to be a $4 billion greenback Ponzi scheme, operated brazenly from Bulgaria’s capital Sofia.
Though the Ponzi scheme collapsed in 2017, OneCoin has continued to function from the identical workplace as a pyramid scheme.
Over the previous 9 years and to this point, Bulgarian authorities have failed to analyze OneCoin or make any related arrests.
The one OneCoin arrest in Bulgaria to this point is Irina Dilkinska, on the behest of US authorities again in 2021.
