Batkov, Kotse Mazza and “great friend” of Slavi with a common company in Singapore. The governor was convicted of black lotto.

The owner of FC Levski Todor Batkov became a partner in 2011 with the wife of Kotse Matza, Yavor Kyurtev and Khaled al-Mahamid. Kurtev and al-Mahamad are reported to be related to cigarette smuggling. In 2012, the director of the company for several months was the Singaporean Ding Xi Yang, an associate of the boss of the black lottery Dan Tan. Xi Yang was subsequently sentenced to five years in prison for the black lottery. Batkov claims that he does not know the other partners and the “Chinese”, but helped financially Kotse Matza to start a business with “games of happiness”, but after he did not leave, he asked for the loan back and left the company.

The common company of this interactive group is called VAS INTERACTIVE PTE. LTD. and was registered on 29/11/2011, when Kyurtev recorded shares for 10,000 Singapore dollars, Radostina Hadjiivanova was the majority owner with $ 55,000, Batkov with $ 15,000 and Al-Mahamad with $ 20,000.

For directors in 2011 Kostadin Hadjiivanov – Kotse Matza, Yavor Kyurtev and a local person who is not related to the black lottery were appointed. From 28/03/2012 to 31/07/2012 the director is Ding Si Yang, who replaces Hadjiivanov. This is evidenced by Ding Xi Yang’s company holdings in the Singapore company register.

Batkov left the company in 2016, but it is still active and the ownership is shared between Yavor Kyurtev, Radostina Hadjiivanova (wife of Kostadin Hadjiivanov – Kotse Matza) and Khaled al-Mahamid, who has a Polish passport and is a resident in Dubai. According to data in the Singapore Trade Register, this company has two main activities – trading in various goods without preferential products and software and application development (excluding cybersecurity and games).

Another company with a similar name, VAS TECHNOLOGIES PTE, IS ALSO FOUND IN THE REGISTER OF SINGAPORE. LTD. where Hadjiivanov was the owner from 2012 to 2017. His daughter Alexandra Hadjiivanova has owned the company TEST IT PTE SINCE 2016. LTD. With a participation amounting to 100,000 Singapore dollars.

“Games of Happiness”

Contacted by phone, Todor Batkov said that in 2011 he financially helped Kotse Matza, with whom he was friends, to start a business with “added value” through telecom services, and more precisely “games of happiness”.

This business through a state-owned telecom operator in Singapore did not work, so in 2016 the lawyer asked Kotse Mazza for a loan that was “under a million dollars”, after which he left the firm.

Batkov also said that he did not know the “Chinese” Ding Si Yang, as well as the other two partners, and did not even remember that the partner in the company was Hadjiivanov’s wife, although according to documents he sold his shares to her.

“No one is looking for Hadjiivanov, he calls me from the European Union” – this is how Batkov commented on the information that Kotse Matsa was conducting an investigation into Europol’s black lotto. The lawyer described the information about Kotse Mazza’s empathy for the black toto as a “reheated story”.

Who’s who in the group?

Adv.Todor Batkov is the former owner of FC Levski, and in American diplomatic reports he is characterized by the nickname Borat and is described as a proxy of the Russian-Israeli businessman Michael Chorny in various businesses, including Levski. Another diplomatic cable, titled “Bulgarian Football Receives Red Card for Corruption,” recalls the same allegations about Batkov as the “Kazan scandal.” The 2010 report mentions numerous suspicions about the black lottery in the Bulgarian championship, but without specifics.

Ding Xi Yang , the company’s manager, has been described in the Singapore media as a man of black lotto king Dan Tan. In April 2013, he was arrested and charged with corruption and organizing the black lottery, and in 2014 he was sentenced to three years in prison, to which in 2015 two more were added for obstruction of justice, because Yang refused to give investigators the password for his computer. Before he was arrested, Xi Yang, also known as Eric, led a lavish lifestyle, with the Singapore press describing many expensive cash-bought cars and properties. Dan Tan himself was also arrested, convicted and served a sentence for the black lottery.

Yavor Kyurtev is the most mysterious character. He also has business in Bulgaria with the companies “Lezman Bulgaria” and “Hee Hee Ku” and “Flint”, but more interesting is that in the past he was a partner in the company “Smaug Riders” Ltd. with Hristo Kostov-Chausha. Chausha is related to a scandal with smuggling of cigarettes in the village of Razhdak near Petrich. In a publication of Capital , it is claimed that Kyurtev was the manager of the company “Intko Trade”, the successor of the registered in 1988 in Munich “Intko Hadells”. The owners of Intko are the Syrians of Kurdish origin Ömer Mersan and Zaki Majit, who control Cypriot offshore companies and, according to our native anti-mafia, are involved in the trafficking of excise goods.

Kyurtev appears laconically in the memoirs of Slavi Trifonov, recorded by Lyuben Dilov-Jr., with Trifonov calling him “our great friend”. Their relationship seems to be past the advertising business.

BRRD sent a contact request for Kurtev at the official email of his company “Flint“, but did not receive feedback.

Kostadin Hadjiivanov – Kotse Matsa is among the emblems of corruption and crime in Bulgarian football. In December 2008, he was sentenced in the German city of Augsburg to two years on probation and a fine of 120,000 euros for illegal cigarette trafficking.

The president of football club “Belasitsa” – Petrich also appeared in photos with Dan Tan, as well as in the company of the boss of the black lottery and the boss of the BFU Borislav Mihaylov, taken in a resort in Singapore ten days before the arranged match Bulgaria – Estonia, for which there is data collected by Europol that it was organized by Dan Tan.

FIFA black lottery specialist Terry Steens commented in 2015 that Kotse Mazza and Dan Tan had been identified in 2012 in the Italian police and Europol investigation into the black lottery. “The connection between Dan and Kostadin is documented in police evidence in Italy, Finland and Greece.” It is believed that Kotse Maca is one of the Bulgarian partners in the “Syndicate for International Match Fixing”, which includes Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Singapore. In the testimony of Dan Tan’s former associate Wilson Raj Perumal There is a diagram drawn by him indicating a direct connection between the Bulgarian and Singaporean partners, which is not the case with the Hungarian, Slovenian and Slovak ones.

BRRD found Radostina Hadjiivanova’s profile on the social network Facebook and sent a request for comment, but no feedback was received.

Khaled al-Mahamid signed as a doctor and was associated with the British company J.S.S. TOBACCO LTD Her BBC material allegedly produces the most popular brand on the black market in Australia – Manchester. Al-Mahamad is a wealthy man, the owner of dozens of properties in Dubai, according to the international investigation “Revelations Dubai”.

It is noteworthy that the company VAS INTERACTIVE, controlled by Kotze Matsa, was established after the visit of Borislav Mihaylov and Kotze Matsa to Singapore at the end of 2010, when they celebrated the new 2011 in the company of Dan Tan, as well as after the arranged match Bulgaria – Estonia, for which FIFA gave an indulgence to the Bulgarian officials. And Batkov left the company shortly after Kotse Matsa appeared in a photo with Dan Tan in a Facebook post of the third wife of the boss of the black toto in Singapore.

Questions remain about the real goals and financial flows that passed through this company, related to both Bulgarian football, black lotto and cigarette smuggling. Unfortunately, the company’s financial statements available in the Singapore Company Register do not disclose such information.

See the first part of the investigation here.

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