Bulgaria to Try Exiled Tycoon Over Bank Collapse
Bulgarian prosecutors have indicted an organized crime group of 18 people over the failure of the Corporate Commercial Bank, CCB, in 2014, starting with the bank's majority owner, Tsvetan Vassilev.
The indictment was filed with ihe Special Criminal Court in Sofia on Thursday.
Among those accused of appropriating 2.8 billion leva (around 1.4 billion euros) from the assets of the bank, which collapsed in 2014, are the former deputy governor of the Bulgarian National Bank, Tsvetan Gunev, auditors from the central bank and employees of the CCB.
"Due to the huge scope of the appropriated funds and the influence it had on the economy and society, the 'CCB model' constitutes ... the largest economic and public 'financial fraud' that has occurred in modern Bulgarian history," reads the prosecution's 150-page resume of the indictment, published on its website.
The prosecutors note that Vasilev lives now at an unidentified address in Serbia, recalling that Bulgaria has sought his extradition multiple times under a European arrest warrant, but the "strange absence of any answer by the competent Serbian judicial authorities".
The trial will be launched with Vasilev in absentia, therefore.
The indictment lists a number of assumed reasons why the tycoon has chosen to go into exile in Serbia, among which are his desire to buy shares in an unnamed bank in Serbia, the purchase of the Serbian Glass Factory company as well as contacts with Serbian "political circles".
According to the prosecution, Vasilev has made payments to offshore companies "from the Serbian side" through local consultants - Nihat Korajic and Trilerium LTD.
The prosecutors have made it clear that this is only the first in a series indictments related to CCB's...
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