Bulgaria to seek 7M leva in assets from former deputy Parliament Speaker
Bulgaria’s asset forfeiture commission will seek to recoup in court more than seven million leva worth of assets from the former deputy speaker of Bulgaria’s Parliament Hristo Biserov, the commission’s head said on April 29.
Earlier this week, a Sofia court impounded 1.55 million leva in assets held by Biserov and his stepson, Ivailo Glavinkov, but the commission has set its sights on a much larger amount.
“In total, the claims that will be lodged by the commission exceed seven million leva. This is the sum that, we believe, passed through bank accounts and whose origin has not been explained,” commission chief Plamen Georgiev told Nova Televizia’s breakfast TV show.
The various transfers happened over a period of 10 years that Biserov was an MP, required by law to make asset disclosure statements each year, Georgiev said.
Biserov is to stand trial on charges of large-scale tax evasion, breaking the law on currency transactions and document fraud. He has also been investigated on suspicion of money laundering, but no charges have been pressed on that count.
Georgiev said that the asset forfeiture commission suspected money laundering activities had been carried out through firms owned by Glavinkov.
Biserov was deputy leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and deputy speaker of the National Assembly when he surprisingly resigned from all leadership positions in the party and from Parliament on November 3 2013, citing personal reasons.
Just days later, on November 7 2013, prosecutors said that they opened an investigation against Biserov and his stepson, Ivailo Glavinkov, after receiving a report from the State Agency for National Security (SANS) detailing suspicious movement of funds from accounts in other European countries.
A week later, on November 15, the prosecutor’s office said that it pressed charges against both Biserov and Glavinkov, and a lawsuit against Biserov was filed in court earlier this month.
(Photo of Hristo Biserov on an MRF campaign poster: dps.bg)
