Bulgaria’s Prosecutor General appealed to the Council of Europe regarding the NEXO Case

The Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev sent letters to the General Secretariat of the Council of Europe, the European Committee on Crime Problems, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen and the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola about difficulties encountered with the application of the European Convention on the extradition of Bulgarian citizens from Republic of Serbia. This was announced by the prosecutor's office.

The letters are regarding actions related to the "Nexo" investigation. The Prosecutor's Office is conducting an investigation into extremely serious cross-border criminal offenses related to an organized criminal group for money laundering, tax crimes and computer fraud, and damages caused in different countries.

The group operated from the beginning of 2018 until January 12 this year in Bulgaria, in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands. So far, in the course of the investigation, evidence has been collected, from which it is established that a number of transactions were carried out with the aim of avoiding the sanctions regime imposed on the Russian Federation.

In the pre-trial proceedings, four were brought as defendants, among them Kosta Kanchev and Antoni Trenchev - founders of Nexo.

On April 4, the prosecutor's office was notified that the two persons were declared internationally wanted in the Schengen information system, and also through the channel of the International Criminal Police Organization - Interpol.

Three days later, information was received from the Interpol national office in Belgrade that the two defendants had arrived on April 6 at 23:05 p.m. at Belgrade airport on a flight from Dubai. On the same day, on the basis of the...