Dossier Commission announces first round of credit millionaires linked to State Security
The Dossier Commission, the body charged with identifying and announcing the identities of people in certain categories who worked for communist-era secret service State Security, has released its first list of credit millionaires with State Security links – from Texim and Balkanbank.
Parliament amended the law governing the Dossier Commission in 2012 to enable it to check credit millionaires, with the aim of shedding light on links between schemes that produced sudden large wealth and the former State Security apparatus.
Balkanbank was registered as a bank in 1990 and went under in 1997, in one of the most high-profile cases of bank failures of that era, as Bulgarian site Mediapool reported. One of the bank’s executives, Ivan Mironov, was the subject of protracted criminal court proceedings but was eventually acquitted.
The commission checked 288 people who owed, in today’s money, more than a million leva (about 500 000 euro, in the pre-1999 pre-redenominated lev, a billion leva) to Balkanbank. Of these, 30 were identified as affiliated to State Security, with the check still continuing.
Among the names announced by the Dossier Commission were Mladen Mutafchiyski, Krassimir Stoichev and George Agafonov. The first two’s affiliation to State Security is becoming known officially for the first time, while Agafonov was identified previously in a separate investigation.
Mutafchiyski, code-name Mihailov, collaborated with the First Main Directorate of State Security. He was a member of the board of Balkaninvest joint stock company which owed 4.246 billion leva (pre-1999 denomination) to Balkanbank. He has been involved in arms companies Kintex and Teraton, is a former head of the board of directors of Sunny Beach company, has a number of luxury hotels, has been associated with various other business initiatives and was involved in a sponsorship of Bulgarian news site Frognews.
Stoichev was Agent Tanev. He is a member of the board of directors of News Holding, which formerly published Bulgarian newspaper Standart and 7 Dni Sport. The company owed Balkanbank two sums, 736.5 million and close to 2.4 billion leva, both in pre-1999 denomination. He was an owner of the Tron group, of Capitalbank which went into bankruptcy, was a member of the 1990s business club the G13, a founder of MobilTel and was the first publisher of Standart.
Agafonov was State Security Agent Zdravkov. He was a member of the general assembly and a partner in the Interclima company of Bourgas, which owed Balkanbank 1.28 million old leva. He is a former owner of Slavyani Bank and was one of the founders of 7 Dni television.
Dossier Commission head Evtim Kostadinov said that in every second or third company on the list of those indebted to Balkanbank were people linked to State Security.
Among the list of names were members of the board of directors of Balkankar, of Lindor 13, Krassimir Pelov, a partner in Top Shop.
