Bulgarian Customs Agency chief Vanyo Tanov dies
Vanyo Tanov, chief of the Bulgarian Customs Agency, died on February 29 2016 at the age of 58.
Public broadcaster Bulgarian National Television reported that Tanov had felt ill and his condition deteriorated rapidly. He died in the ambulance on the way to hospital.
Tanov, a former director of the National Service for Combating Organised Crime, twice held the post of chief of the Customs Agency. He was appointed to head the agency in August 2009, in the early weeks of the first government headed by Boiko Borissov.
He was dismissed in August 2013 at the time of the now-departed ruling axis of the Bulgarian Socialist Party and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms.
In August 2014, the caretakeer cabinet of the time re-appointed Tanov as head of the Customs Agency.
Born in the town of Montana, he graduated in engineering from Angel Kunchev Rousse University and became an Interior Ministry employee in 1985.
Tanov was appointed director of the National Service for Combating Organised Crime in 2005, resigning two years later and standing, unsuccessfully, in the autumn 2007 elections as a candidate mayor of Rousse.
He is survived by a spouse and two sons.
