Our organization is expensive.

Recently, somehow, by the way, a piece of news crept into the public domain, which practically no one covered. In
an interview
on BTV two weeks ago, Justice Minister Nadezhda Yordanova announced that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has begun “serially” to communicate complaints of Bulgarian citizens against the actions of KPKONPI. The communication of an appeal is the penultimate phase before the case is examined on its merits and rendered a decision, and in some cases this can happen quite quickly, within a year. Along with all the other scandals, parliamentary circuses, quarrels and any other chaff, this revelation somehow sank between the drops. However, from BIRD we decided to explore what it is all about, as well as to put this research in the context of the broader framework of what KPKONPI does (and does not).

ECHR as Last Roubezh vs Conpirate

Our studies showed that these are (at least) 4 cases communicated by the ECHR to the Bulgarian state on April 8. These are complaints 31239/11, 36250/12, 21039/13 and 10599/14. The fact that they are communicated on the same date in principle means that the judges in Strasbourg group these 4 cases as a common, general problem.

And there is definitely a problem – and that is that KPKONPI operates to a large extent in the gray sphere of quasi-judicial control. That is, in theory, there is judicial control, but in practice there is not – as far as ” control” is superficial, formalistic and automated. The subject of the first case is a confiscatory claim for BGN 1.7 million, and the main question of the ECtHR is whether the court in Kardzhali has correctly established that the confiscated assets are of criminal origin. In the second case, the questions are again whether KPKONPI has proven the criminal origin of the seized assets, as well as what imposes the extremely long period in which the distraints are active (for nearly 15 years now).

The third case concerns confiscation of BGN 200,000 in Vratsa, and the ECHR asks (again!) whether the link between specific crimes and confiscated assets has been established. Otherwise, between the second and third cases there is another general issue concerning the partitioning of access to justice – as far as the high appellate and cassation state fees were clearly not within the power of the parties concerned. In the fourth case, the case is perhaps the most strange, as KPKONPI has maintained distraints for nine (!) years, without, however, bringing an action in court – with the only argument that there is a criminal case pending against the affected persons. Various court panels in Sofia, Plovdiv and Burgas have blanchedly and repeatedly used this argument to refuse the annulment of the distraints. The situation is similar in the second case – there is no confiscatory claim to this day (there are only distraints), against the backdrop of a dragging criminal case since 2009 and until now.

In general, this paints a rather disturbing picture, which can be summarized as follows:

• The prosecutor’s office is pressing charges. After a while (maybe) the case goes to court. If the court does not return the indictment, the case begins. If it goes, it gets stuck for years. If he does not go to court at all (which depends only on the prosecutor) – you sit a defendant until the second coming. And you pick the “fruits” of that privilege.
• Meanwhile, KPKONPI initiates proceedings and imposes distraints (and this is the main “fruit” for picking). Distraints can sit indefinitely – as the controlling civil courts do not bother to assess proportionality, reciprocity, duration and other annoying considerations. This is evident from the data in the cases above, unfortunately even for the Supreme Court of Cassation.
• If you lose the case at first instance, you must pay a hefty appeal fee (and then possibly a cassation fee) – while KPKONPI is exempt from paying state fees in advance. If you cannot pay – you are your problem, the decision of the lower court comes into force and you are deprived of what is taken from you.

STATUTORY EXPERIMENTS and (IN)CONVENIENT COURTS

To a large extent, this factual state is due to the chaotic, inconsistent and frankly repressive approach of the legislature. The KPKONPI Act has already undergone many amendments over the years, with any subsequent one aimed at “freaking out” more and more civil forfeiture from criminal proceedings.

Last (and perhaps most brazen) was the legislative creation of the legal leader Barney Rubble from the end of 2018. Then he “cursed” the SCC on national television for allowing himself to restore a little order in the legal chaos created by the legislator (i.e. by him). Then he wrote expressly, proposed and passed for a few days a law to “correct the consequences” of the interpretative decision of the Supreme Court judges. “The SCC has no right to such decisions!” He famously proclaimed then, giving a clear indication of what he has (and what does not have) the right to decide the court in the Gerber-Peevska Jamahiriya. Barney then passed a law that makes absolutely no difference whether you were acquitted in the criminal case – because even then KPKONPI can continue to do whatever it wants with you.

Behind this law-making rush , in fact, quite transparently was the attempt to rehabilitate the weakness of the prosecution to achieve convictions in landmark cases against the “enemies-of-the people”, stitched together on an entirely custom-made basis. On the sidelines of parliament, Barney was even heard mentioning “Prokopiev and Traykov” in a low voice. Although, of course, the custom affairs were (and still are) much more. That is, a priori it was assumed that the prosecutors were either commissioned or incompetent (in some cases both), but the conpirs could then take the baton and still “smash the face” (according to Borisov) who needs it.

However, if we have to be quite honest, part of the blame lies with the courts – especially at the district and appellate level. And this is because, as we pointed out above, the judges in the mass case assume that KPKONPI “knows what it is doing” because its inspectors are “legal and financial experts” (but right?!). That is, the distraints sit as long as KPKONPI wants and judges – no more, no less.

And no one but Sotir/Tony is clear what this assessment is based on. A fresh example of the opposite (and in a bad way) is the Commission’s seizure of Viva Telecom in order to easily resell it by/to
the
duty swindler Spas Rusev. At which he (and those behind him) made a colossal profit – as the Republican budget received in the form of taxes an amount corresponding to a far smaller, fictitiously low profit (it sounds familiar, right – just like Lukoil).

Thank you, Comrade Tsatsarov. Maybe another part went into someone else’s non-Republican budget… Who knows. On the other hand, there are rare exceptions in case law in which, after all, some judges “cut” KPKONPI – for example, the city of KPKONPI. E. 17/2019 on the inventory of the SAS, as well as the more famous
failure
of Tsatsarov against Arabadzhievi, media covered
here
. Apropos, during a careful review of this mega-case for 400 million, we noticed that subsequently the SAC has finally denied the Commission other requested distraints – in particular on 29.12.2020 and on 22.04.2021. But out of the attachments, the case is nowhere.

RECORD EXPENSES and COMPENSATION

In the distant December 2019, during his hearing for head of KPKONPI, Tsatsarov famously Said, that ‘The Commission is not a trading company to measure how much it takes and how much it receives.“This he said in response to a question how much money KPKONPI has returned to the state budget – in relation to how much funds the budget allocates for its maintenance.

This is a rather strange and even worrying mentality for the head of a confiscation committee – given that the Commission’s raison d’être is precisely this – to provide a net positive inflow of financial resources to the budget. Both Tsatsarov and Geshev are very fond of boasting about the “three billion seized assets” – but conveniently omitting that only about one percent of this amount has been finally confiscated and received in the budget since the Commission (in its various forms) existed.

Separate – but key – is the issue that KPKONPI often wins the share only on paper, i.e. straw people or mailbox companies opposite that have nothing. Demek, you’ll take the barefoot of the churches.

On the other hand, however, over the years, more and more serious and even record amounts have accumulated, which KPKONPI has been ordered to pay in terms of costs, fees and even damages under the SMLDA. A numerical analysis of the court registers actually shows that after the Prosecutor’s Office KPKONPI is the most tried (and convicted) state institution under the SMLDA.

Here we will mark only the more striking cases. For example, two years ago Traycho Traykov
sentenced
KPKONI to BGN 100,000 in compensation for an illegal decision for “conflict of interest”. The mayor of Sredets region is yet to seek compensation for the insane pasqualil “the EVN case”, where Petyo Euro’s brother, proc. Emil Petrov, tried to quote Ecliast(?!) as an excuse for the nonsense he had shredded. With a more recent date, the Commission was ordered to pay BGN 200,000 in costs in one (only one!) lost case, and the decision is available
here
– and is media
coverage
. However, the absolute record (at least for now) is BGN 250,000 in
costs
paid in a case that the Commission started in 2009 – and ultimately
lost
.

A study and analysis of BIRD revealed many other cases that are not media coverage anywhere. For example, KPKONPI seriously failed in the case against former depessary MP and activist Günay Sefer, from whom it sought to confiscate over BGN 2 million in assets acquired with funds of unknown origin. Recently, the Varna Court
of Appeal rejected
the Commission’s claim, ordering it to pay BGN 130,000 in costs. Aferim, as they say.

Another example is the case for over BGN 4 million against the son of the prominent depessar Hristo Bisserov, which KPONPI lost (so far) – and in which
it was ordered
to pay 330,000 leva expenses. Ashkolsun! A third example is the case against a major seaside construction entrepreneur, Nikolay Alexiev, where the forfeiture of BGN 4.5 million is claimed. Recently, the Burgas Court of Appeal again cut the commission of Tsatsarov / Balconi – and
ordered
it to pay BGN 130,000 in costs.

Against the backdrop of all this, the position of Chief Conpir Tsatsarov that the Commission did not owe a profit and loss account is perplexing. But then we would ask — and why do we need this Commission, in this form?! If the cost of its subsistence exceeds what it manages to provide as revenues in the budget – what is the point of its existence?!

This contrasts very clearly with neighbouring Romania, where over the years the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office DNA has managed to return billions of euros to the budget. Note, there is no (and there does not need to be) a confiscation commission – i.e. there the courts order confiscation after Romanian prosecutors manage to achieve convictions for high corruption, VAT fraud and a number of other crimes with a substantial, measurable financial interest.

And here is the stark contrast with “our village” – the Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office is not able to boast of anything, even at first instance. Not to mention the last – sorry, but we cannot count as a “success” the suspended sentence of Zhivko Sudjuka from GERB. Geshev’s ridiculous explanations that the Penal Code was guilty “from the time of Comrade Todor Zhivkov” cannot move anyone. Rather, something else is true, as a long-standing prosecutor recently shared with us: “When a colleague has performed for years Only dirty orders, he inevitably declassifies and dequalifies. So, when a case comes to him in which someone has firmly picked up the honey barrel and really needs to be punished, the colleague can’t really cope – even if he wants to.” In this situation, the Penal Code of Comrade Zhivkov cannot be a universal justification – apparently the deep problem is elsewhere.

We would also point out another systemic problem – in the face of these increasingly huge expenses and compensations, Tsatsarov (before hiding in the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor’s Office) had begun to lie about the amounts to which his ward committee was convicted. The Commission’s official report, signed by it, indicated amounts several orders of magnitude lower than the real ones. And this was (and still is) easily ascertainable – both from the court registers themselves and from media publications (

here and here

). Either way, no one dared to hold him to account or at least ask him a question about it – including during his farewell monologue in the National Assembly in January. Where, instead of being pressed with the really important and burning issues, the inadequate behavior of the MPs from the relevant anti-corruption commission allowed him to scream and irrigation to explain how humiliated, hurt and angry he was with everyone – and especially (of course) Prokopiev, Hristo Ivanov, Soros And I don’t know who else, maybe the Masons (Oops, sorry, he himself was a “sunny” Mason).

KPKONPI in Wonderland (and Tears)

It was not long after the dramatic tour of the Chief Conpir Tsatsarov in the National Assembly and he was followed by the hearing of the entire composition of the Commission, headed by the new boss Tony Baloni. In March, the relevant committee, as well as the parliament, rejected the annual report of KPKONPI, making a number of heavy criticisms. It can be said that the deputies had taken note of the way he played them and “scolded” Tsatsarov – and this time
they behaved
much tighter. There were much more adequate questions, including how exactly the so-called “Cold War” was conducted. Peevski’s “checks”, so that every time #ТОЙ comes out cleaner and more laundered. Mr. Baloni did not give a meaningful answer to this question, although he half-heartedly promised to “provide MPs with the necessary information”. To date, it is unclear exactly what this means – and whether anything has been provided at all. Rather, it doesn’t seem to be. The hearing was then remembered for another – namely that one of Tony’s deputies, Ms Silvia Kadreva, literally struck him to tears after the PP deputies bluntly stated that they saw no meaningful results from the Commission’s activities – and asked why this was so. Ms. Kadreva explained in a trembling voice that she worked 7 days a week, 12 hours a day. But as they say – nerde Yambol, nerde Istanbul. One is the quantity of work and the other is the quality. Given that Peevski, Dogan, Goranov and all of them are still clean and uncorrupted (despite the “magnetization”), then obviously the quality of the work is not second to none. Or, as they say, KPKONPI obviously boils meaningless, but hard work.

But perhaps the most fundamental confession we witnessed was this: KPKONPI does not have a single, formalized methodology by which it calculates the discrepancies between income and expenses. That is, the most important component of the proceedings, on the basis of which it is decided whether to proceed with a confiscatory claim, is deeply subjective. According to Baloni and Kadreva, “well, we have internal rules.” What are these rules, by whom they are written, are they based at all on internationally recognized accounting standards (as is the case with tax audits) – we never understood. And so it turns out that for 15 years the Commission (in its various incarnations) has been working on the one-to-gottere method. In other words, we will find a discrepancy where we are ordered by Pazzo/Sotir/Tony. Who are ordered by Peevski/Dogan/Borisov. So, comment here everyone leave (if we have to paraphrase Dante).

Bulgaria in the role of the EU Guinea Pig

For several years now, another noteworthy theory has been creeping in, largely devoted to the external factor – i.e. the European Commission. This thesis is that the Commission has decided to “experiment” with civil forfeiture as a completely separate and autonomous way to combat dirty money – even when no crime can be proven. That the problem with dirty money in the EU is huge there is no doubt, but as a small country obviously Bulgaria has been chosen as a testing ground for a new strategy for the interception and confiscation of these dirty cash flows. Indirect proof of this are two rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union, respectively in 2020 and 2021

, through

which the Court “elegantly” refuses to deal with this legal carambola – and thus gives carte blanche for the continuation of the strategy.

However, the practical implementation of this innovative “legal thought” outside Bulgaria hits a snag. For example, it became clear – despite the attempts of Paco Terrazata to hide the information – that an appellate court in Switzerland, acting as a last resort,
had refused
KPKONPI to seize Tzvetan Vassilev’s real estate assets in Geneva. The fate of other similar conferro
efforts
in Greece and Switzerland is identical. In other words, the European courts do not recognize the exotic legal “construction” that allows the Commission to whirl in Bulgaria and partly obliges local courts to initialize all its actions. That is, European judges refuse to act as a “rubber stamp”, unlike their Bulgarian counterparts.

But where is the change?

The central question, which stands with particular sharpness, is what to do in the future. In the coalition programme, signed 6 months ago, it was explicitly written: “the reform of KPKONPI is an immediate priority”. In our opinion, “immediately” and “6 months” are mutually incompatible concepts. Unfortunately, to date, there are only airy hints and untimely comments that a new anti-corruption law is being prepared – and we will see it soon.

However, this “soon” has been going on for many months. For example, with or without a new law, it was easy and quick to replace Tony Balconi, barbar, with his sobbing team. We dare say that these “crocodile tears” were the result of acting, not anything else. Either way, even this was not done – but was imperative, as Slavchev simply continues the hard party line imposed by Tsatsarov (read, by the MRF).

According to official (and not only) information, “There is such a People” are trying to provide a shelter / umbrella for the MRF from any future actions of the Commission – especially with regard to Peevski and Dogan. In this sense, they quietly but for now effectively sabotage the new bill, even including the replacement of Anton Slavchev and his team.

This thesis is supported by the ever-increasing (although so far indirect) evidence that through a complex scheme and tangle of offshore companies, TV 7/8 is actually funded by Kamen Kostadinov – the treasurer of MRF and personally of Dogan. If we manage to collect the necessary materials, we will develop this topic as a separate investigation. And until then, God forbid that the forces of Change prevail over the power from the Couch. As well as over the prosecutorial-property dependencies of a sufficient number of deputies from one “coalition-left” party. God forbid.

(This article was edited on Monday, June 6. In this sense, our conclusion turned out to be somewhat prophetic regarding the “eruption” from the Diwan on Wednesday, June 8. The rest, as they say, is silence.)

***

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