Drug Files: Weapons, Drugs and State Security

Hans Agredo Caballero and his father, Umberto Agredo Espitia , are wanted by Colombian authorities for the illegal import into the country of at least 11,000 Bulgarian AK 47 assault rifles, as well as for the export of 1,100 kg of cocaine from Colombia to Mexico. They are cited as leading figures in clandestine paramilitaries. In Bulgaria, Colombians had business relations with companies linked to Petar Mandzhukov, were close to the “Pope” of organized crime Ivo Karamanski, and a former deputy head of the State Security (counterintelligence) became Hans’s father-in-law. The export of weapons is formed as parts for machine tools or fertilizers. This was shown by a study by BIRD within the international project NarcoFiles, which involved 40 media from 23 countries.

Journalists from the project were given access to terabytes of information leaked by the Colombian prosecutor’s office. Their research outlines a new criminal world order in which the bargaining chip is powdered cocaine. The most detailed “Bulgarian trace” in NarcoFiles are the weapons intended for Colombia’s declared “criminal alliance of private armies” – the United Self-Defense Forces (AUC), led by Carlos Castaño Hill.

Divorce due to irretrievable disorder

A brief announcement in the State Gazette of 2013 notifies Hans Agredo Caballero, a citizen of the Republic of Colombia, for termination of the civil marriage concluded between him and his wife due to a deep and irretrievable disorder (gr.d. No 24662/2012 on the inventory of SSDs /. Behind the modest announcement, however, lies a whole saga of drugs, murders, arms smuggling and kinship with the Bulgarian State Security.

The father of Hans Agredo’s ex-wife is none other than anyone. Nikolay Ivanov Kodjeikov is Head of the “Greek” Department at the Second Main Directorate of the State Security. After November 10, at the beginning of the transition, counterintelligence was merged into the National Service for the Protection of the Constitution, and Nikolay Kodzheikov became Deputy Director of the Service.

Nikolay Kodjeikov leaves this world in 2022 at the age of almost 80 years. But the father of his former daughter-in-law, Umberto Agredo Espitia, is alive and well in Florida, where he lives modestly as a gas station manager. Modest, because in the past he lived on a wide footing, flying between Bulgaria and Colombia ostensibly for a business with machine tools and bananas, but in fact as an international trafficker of arms and cocaine. Espitia is said to have redeemed himself for his past sins by becoming an informant for the DEA, but the Colombian prosecutor’s office continues to investigate and search for him.

According to investigators in Bogotá, Hans Agredo Caballero and Umberto Agredo Espitia are the main “suppliers” of arms of the Carlos Castaño Hill group “Colombian Self-Defense Unit” (AUC) and are considered very close to him. When AUC negotiated with the government after 2004, Umberto Agredo Espitia was among the negotiators. Several of the AUC members argued to prosecutors that Umberto Agredo had a leading role in the organization in the recent years Carlos Castaño led it.

According to witness statements, Agredo was involved in the smuggling of Bulgarian weapons in 1999 and 2000, through Buenaventura in Colombia were “delivered” 7,640 assault rifles, another 4,200 through another port. They are produced by Arsenal-Kazanlak and are of the AK-47 type under a caliber of 5.56 NATO. The weapon was ordered by paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño-Hill and was reportedly disbursed with cocaine because that was the practice of AUC.

In 2006, the Bogotá court ruled that there was insufficient evidence against the two Agredos. Twelve years later, another panel of judges revised the 2006 ruling, charged the men, issued a warrant for their detention and filed a report with the Colombian prosecutor’s anti-corruption unit against the first judicial panel that ruled on their case. The convicted Jorge Ernesto Rojas Galindo testified several times about the role of Umberto Agredo Espitia and confirmed that he was the organizer of the traffic on behalf of Carlos Castaño – Hill.

“There were three documents that were the same and all were signed by Captain Orlando Martinez. With these three documents, the arms were listed in the name of my company, and Mr. Agredo introduced them. I can’t tell you how many weapons, but guns were imported.”

The carbines that enter through the port of Buenaventura were imported three times. The first shipment was sent on June 3, 1999 from the port of Varna in two containers weighing 13,820 kg. It has 640 rifles. Obviously, there are other contents in the shipment, because these carbines, even packed in chests, can not reach this weight. In Buenaventura, the cargo is serviced by the company “Equipos y Repuestos Limitada” owned by Jorge Ernesto Rojas Galindo. At that time the receiver company, according to The Semana Edition, has entered into a contract with Arsenal to represent him at a military exhibition in Bogotá. In fact, the exhibition becomes a formal occasion for the import of weapons and spare parts for it, but with forged documents, witnesses say.

Colombian media report that at the exhibition Arsena was represented by Petko Apostolov Vakov, for whom we find evidence that until 2007 he was on the management board of Arsenal, but today he is presented as Head of Engineering at Arsenal AD. According to
Semana
, Vakov was in the company of Umberto Agredo while in Bogotá.

The second part of the assault rifles, about 7,000 units, reached Colombia in two containers. The weapons came to the motor ship NEDLLOY D CLEMENT V. 007 SB in containers weighing 30,219 kg. The shipment was released on January 28, 2000 by the same company “Equipos y Repuestos Limitada”. The cargo is declared as containers with lathes, but inside there are disassembled AK-47s. Machine tools are indicated to be supplied by
Intermashinex
– Bulgaria at “Equipos y Repuestos Limitada” – Colombia.

For a third shipment of 4,200 assault rifles from Bulgaria in 2001, according to the testimony of Raul Emilio Hasbum Mendoza, another witness of the prosecution, “The operation” was again carried out by Umberto Agredo, but not through the port of Buenaventura, but through the port of Necoccoli. The shipment was again ordered by Carlos Castagno. Mendoza testified that the purchase and forwarding of the weapon was realized through false letters and permissions from the Colombian government. The weapons come in disguised as a shipment of artificial manure. The cargo was cleared by customs authorities in Colombia, with the help of lawyer Hubert Duque, who accidentally or not, a year later was shot in the city of Medellín.

Our team followed the tracks of these shipments from Bulgaria and managed to contact some of Agredo’s Bulgarian partners. Their version is different from that of Colombian investigators.

Lathes for the Colombian Church

The company “Intermashinex” was established in 1992 by Hans Agredo Caballero, Umberto Agredo Espitia and Elka Simeonova Ivanova in Pernik under the name “Hans and Bulat – Ltd.” Who Hans is is clear, but there is no information about the partner with the Caucasian name Bulat.

In 1993, the Agredo family’s share in the company

was transferred to Antonio Ivanov Ivanov, who initially worked in partnership with Elka Simeonova Ivanova, who was his mother. In 1999 – 2000, when the shipment of weapons was realized, the company “Intermachinex” was owned by Antonio Ivanov Ivanov, who claimed that at that time he had no trade relations with partners from Colombia. Antonio Ivanov proved to be key to unraveling the Bulgarian connection in this history, which began during socialism.

In 1986 Antonio Ivanov Ivanov, today the owner of Inter-Machinex Ltd.,

was seconded to Colombia as a representative of the then state-owned company Mashinoexport

. On the spot, Ivanov has to deal with many problems. Colombian contractors owe serious sums to the enterprise, and as early as the early 1980s, about 30 Bulgarian lathes were confiscated by the customs authorities in Colombia because they were declared as spare parts and not as whole machines.

In the 1980s, Umberto Agredo specialized in customs clearance and had a company Reyfer, which is engaged in the supply of spare parts and tools. He connects Antonio Ivanov with the Board of Trustees of the Catholic Center for Vocational Training Don Bosco. The director there is Francisco Pope. Both Francisco and Umberto arranged for the detained machines to be donated to the church by customs, and Umberto arranged for the machines to be paid to Masoexport.

After 1991 Antonio Ivanov returned to Bulgaria. Umberto Agredo asked him to enroll his son in a specialty in international economic relations at the UNWE. Hans Agredo lived in Bulgaria permanently, and Umberto skipped to Bulgaria for several years. The Colombians opened two companies – Pettum and Hans and Bulat. In one they partner Antonio Ivanov’s mother and in the other associate professor Perkan Iliev. He was a leading lecturer in the education of the International Economic Relations at that time, but he also started his own business ventures. Hans Agredo already speaks good Bulgarian and the three started a joint project. In front of Associate Professor Iliev Umberto Agredo presented himself as part of the team of Masoexport to Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia. Pettum exports machine tools to Colombia, including cutters manufactured by Arsenal. In the words of Assoc. Iliev Umberto Agredo tried to maintain the Bulgarian machines and supply them with parts. It is a strange coincidence that Intermashinex, as renamed “Hans and Bulat”, has identical activity.

Karamanski, Mandjoukov and bananas

Petkan Iliev says that while working with Umberto Agredo, he was in very warm relations with the “Pope” of Bulgarian organized crime Ivo Karamanski. After his murder in 1998, only Hans remained in Bulgaria, and Umberto for unknown reasons returned to Colombia urgently. This raises suspicions in Petkan Iliev that his Colombian partner is involved in drug trafficking.

Whether Agredo and Karamanski had a “business” relationship for the time being is unclear. It is a fact, however, that the rower was among the emblematic names of organised crime in the 1990s.

On the other hand, Colombian investigators quite categorically accuse Umberto Agredo for exports per 1 100 kg. cocaine from Colombia to Mexico. According to witnesses of the prosecution, this was at least partially paid for the arms shipment from Bulgaria, because this was the practice of AUC. Convicted Jorge Ernesto Rojas Galindo testified several times about the role of Umberto Agredo Espitia and confirmed that he was the organizer of arms trafficking ordered by Carlos Castagno.

Umberto Agredo is also suspected of illegal arms imports from Russia and the United States, but no evidence has been collected for these cases.

Meanwhile, relations between Umberto Agredo and Antonio Ivanov are strained. While Ivanov was Colombia to look for new markets, Agredo became a representative of the rival ZMM Sofia. After meeting with Todor Stankov Agredo decided to export their products to Colombia. This fact is confirmed by Stankov himself. For about 2 years Agredo managed to export over 20 lathes produced by ZMM Sofia, as well as two digital machines. The man managed to hire a whole team of technicians and engineers from Bulgaria to implement the machines in Colombia and train the staff there.

V
ZMM AD
The names of the Mandjoukov family and in particular the arms dealer Petar Mandjoukov stand out. At a time when Alberto Agredo was a representative of the company in Latin America, Mandjoukov was not part of the management of ZMM Sofia, but before that he was, as he was associated with Intermachinex. In practice, the industrialist is connected to both state-owned enterprises with which Agredo has trade relations.

When in 1999 part of the AK assault rifles were imported in containers with lathes in Colombia, Agrido declared that the cargo was produced by Intermashinex, a claim that Antonio Ivanov categorically denies. ZMM AD, the successor of ZMM Sofia, denied that they had exported machines to Latin America at that time. There is no evidence that the machines have been examined to determine who their manufacturer is.

However, Ivanov recalls that Agredo’s business plans were not limited to the trade in machine tools. The Colombian tried to import bananas into Bulgaria. As an investigation by our Italian partner IRPI revealed, paramilitary organizations in Colombia control banana plantations as part of the organization of large-scale cocaine trafficking to Europe in shipments of the popular exotic fruit. Tonnes of cocaine were seized only this year in banana shipments to Spain and Belgium. Cocaine bananas have also reached Bulgaria, but in smaller quantities.

There is no evidence in the Drug Files of Umberto Agredo’s involvement in direct drug trafficking to Bulgaria. And that’s logical. In Bulgaria, the wholesale price of AK-47 carbines is $ 140-150 per piece. This means that for them “Arsenal” received about $ 1,600,000 -1,700,000. In Colombia, however, such a weapon, witnesses said, traded for more than $1,000 per piece, or at least $11 million for 11,000 assault rifles. Naturally, this price includes the cost of transportation and those of corruption. But even after deduction of all expenses, Agredo’s deal remains extremely profitable and without taking the risk of becoming involved in cocaine trafficking to Bulgaria.

Not the father-in-law, but the father of his daughter-in-law. From the services

Convicted for trafficking in arms owner of “Equipos y Repuestos Limitada” Jorge Ernesto Rojas Galindo lays out curious data about Umberto Agredo. Reveals that his relationship with Carlos Castaño-Hill goes through another AUC leader, Salvatore Mancuso. Agredo told Galindo that he could handle delivering many rifles from Bulgaria because his son’s father-in-law was the director of the Arsenal plant. Then the captain connected him with Mancuso, and he with Castagno.

“Umberto was responsible for receiving the weapons that were purchased by a member of his family and his father-in-law. He paid for that merchandise there. He took four trips that he had to make with money he received from Carlos Castagno. His father-in-law knew perfectly well that these weapons came for self-defense groups.“

Information about family ties with an Arsenal manager who was a relative of Agredo is also found in other testimony from other demilitarized AUC members.

Colombian investigators, however, have no idea who Umberto’s “father-in-law” is, pointing to almost the entire Arsenal leadership as trafficked. In 1999 the company still had a strong state involvement. Personally in the court papers are indicated today’s majority owners of “Arsenal” Nikolay Hristov Ibushev, Hristo Nilolaev Ibushev , Stanil Mihalev Stanilov, the lawyer, former Deputy Minister of Justice and shareholder in Arsenal 2000 Dragia Zhelyazkov Dragiev and Dimitar Todorov Gramatikov. Colombian authorities point out that these are Bulgarian citizens on board Arsenal AD. The company’s research was conducted by the Colombian authorities after the privatization of the enterprise, and in 1999, when exports were authorized by the Bulgarian state, Arsenal was state-owned or in the process of privatization.

Nikolay Ivanov Kodjeikov was head of the “Greek” department at the Second Main Directorate of the State Security. After November 10, at the beginning of the transition, counterintelligence was merged into the National Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Nikolay Kodjeikov became Deputy Director of the Office. In 1991, the counterintelligence service became the National Security Service. At that time, the Minister of Interior was Yordan Sokolov, who began renewing the staff and retired many “veterans” in the service, including Kodjeikov. According to official documentation, Kojeykov graduated from the KGB school in the USSR in 1982 and it is unlikely that he was not recruited there. His brother is Petar Kodjeikov – the former head of the 4th Precinct in Sofia, Nikolay and Petar Kodjeykovi are first cousins of the father of General Todor Kodjeikov, former head of the National Security Service.

After leaving the services, Nikolay Kodjeikov started working for the Bulgarian Agricultural and Industrial Bank (BZPB). For a short time it is also part of The Management Board of the financial institution. In the 1990s, the bank had a reputation for serving the interests of the Orion circle in the BSP. It is believed that Rumen Spasov is behind the bank. He is the son of the mythical for the time of the socialist General Mircho Spasov. Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the bank is Veska Medzhidieva, wife of Rumen Spasov. Another bank associated with the Orion circle – the BZK turns credit millionaires three people from the management of the company with state participation “Namko Bulgaria”. Before being declared bankrupt, the company had 51% foreign and 49% Bulgarian participation. Shareholders there are the Ministry of Defense through the military repair plants “Terem.

The position that Nikolay Ivanov Kodzheykov took part in counterintelligence, and then in the Bulgarian Agricultural and Industrial Bank and respectively in the circle “Orion” justified the hypothesis that he was able to influence arms exports and arms deals in general. But his bossing position at Arsenal, which Agredo boasted of in front of witnesses, has not been confirmed. Dragia Zhelyazkov Dragiev – former Deputy. Minister of Justice, UDF politician and shareholder in “Arsenal” is adamant that Kodjeykov has never held any position in the management of the company.

“To stimulate Bulgarian exports”

Whether officially, whether as lathes or fertilizers, there are exports of Bulgarian weapons to Colombia. According to a report by the Coordination Center for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons in Southeast Europe, in 2001 the Bulgarian arms industry sold about $ 2,200,000 in Colombia.

Undoubtedly, the weapon came out of Bulgaria with the sanction of the interdepartmental commission at the Ministry of Trade and Tourism. At that time, the chairman of the committee was Hristo Mihaylovski, who was also deputy. Minister of Trade and Tourism. Approached for comment, Mihailovsky said he could not remember a case almost 25 years old, but stressed that all export permits were granted in consultation with partner services. The former deputy minister said that the commission’s desire was to stimulate Bulgarian exports, but in compliance with the law. The then Director of the NCSR, General Atanas Atanasov, also denied that there was any memory of anything wrong with the supply of weapons to Colombia. The fact is that at that time Bulgaria had a reputation as a supplier in arms deals that disturbed the UN. And the ongoing investigation into Bulgarian weapons in Colombia is proof that the incentive for Bulgarian exports is not always an investment in good reputation for the state.

Who is Carlos Castaño?

The figure of the alleged guarantor of trafficking Carlos Castaño is among the most controversial in recent Colombian history. He gained international notoriety for leading the persecution in which Pablo Escobar was killed. He is reported to be a former member of the Medellín drug cartel. He, along with his brothers Fidel and Vicente, founded the Group for the Protection of Córdoba and Urabá, the Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá, which later became part of the AUC. The reason for the radicalization of the Castaño brothers is that their father was kidnapped and killed by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Initially, the paramilitary group was funded by Colombian drug lord Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha. Gacha’s partner and almost “product” is Pablo Escobar. After the war that ensued between the various leaders of the Medellín drug cartel, Carlos Castaño found himself among Escobar’s enemies. He began to go to war with him and is believed to have been financed by the Cali Cartel. His organization, the AUC, has been blamed by Colombian authorities as responsible for tens of thousands of murders, of which at least 300 were of people close to Escobar, including members of his family. Escobar’s son says his father’s body was discovered by Carlos Castagno. Today, it is undeniably established that the Castaño-led AUC are responsible for systematic serious crimes against the civilian population of Colombia, including several proven mass killings of civilians. In September 2002, Carlos Castaño was charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with orchestrating the trafficking of over 17 tons of cocaine in the United States. At the time, Umberto Agredo was very close to the leader of the Self-Defense Groups (AUC). With a high degree of probability, on April 16, 2004, Carlos Castaño was killed after an internal confrontation with other AUC leaders. He is believed to want to distance himself from drug trafficking, unlike his brother and Vicente Castaño and Diego Murillo. In 2004, Umberto and Hans Agredo were assassinated. This is happening in Medellín. According to Jorge Ernesto Rojas, when the order for the murder of Carlos Castagno was given, the order for the elimination of Umberto Agredo was given. Many members of far-right paramilitaries believe that by fleeing Agredo managed to collect Carlos Castagno’s assets, estimated to be at least $ 7 million. There was word in the organization that Agredo had gone to the United States because he was an informant for the DEA.

Lead collage: James O’Brien/OCCRP, BIRD.BG

Наркофайлове: Новият световен престъпен ред

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