Pandora: Borisov’s lawyer and his ministers control a Seychelles offshore

The well-known lawyer Menko Menkov, who represents Boyko Borisov and his ministers, is the owner of the offshore Sageweld Ltd., registered in the Seychelles, the Pandora-Files reveal. He became the owner of the company in 2015. This offshore company has no activity in Bulgaria, a check in the Commercial Register showed.

Probably, the fact that Menkov is listed as the official owner of the company was worrying for the lawyer, because in 2017 he transferred his shares to a nominal owner from Mahé, Seychelles – Molly Rita Roselie. In order to maintain control over the company’s assets, a general power of attorney was formed in the name of Menkov, with which he could also operate with the bank accounts of the company.

Molly Rita Roselli is registered in the Bulgarian Commercial Register as the ultimate owner of dozens of companies with offshore ownership. It is obviously not so, and the documents in Menkov’s case confirm it. Formally, this is about declaring false information in the Commercial Register, but the Registry Agency does not have the opportunity to establish these facts.

Our reporter tried to contact Menko Menkov for a comment, but he did not answer the phone and did not respond to the sent SMS-messages. In recent days, his name has been mentioned in the media and because of the scandal with 450 kg. liquid amphetamine seized at Sofia Airport. It turned out that the recipient of the prohibited substance is a partner with Menkov in the company DDLS-Biosim.

Menko Menkov is a criminal lawyer who defended Tsvetan Tsvetanov for a long time, and now accompanies Boyko Borisov and his ministers Petya Avramova and Nikolay Nankov to interrogations.

It is unclear whether Adv. Menkov holds the offshore for himself or for the benefit of persons he represents. Bivol’s investigations, based on documents from the Panama Papers, show that Delyan Peevski’s lawyer, Sasho Angelov, is the formal owner of offshore companies behind which stand the economic interests of the former MP and head of the State Agency for National Security (DANS).

The Bulgarian politicians in the Pandora Files revealed so far are
Delyan Peevski
and
Nickolay Mladenov
and
Nikolay Barekov
, and Arben Havalyov. In addition, the files include large financiers, lawyers, individuals associated with multimillion-dollar fraudulent schemes, but also entrepreneurs with regular business, with no visible political protections, who have registered offshore companies and have announced them to the Bulgarian authorities.

The investigation of the BIRD.BG also revealed the secret offshore companies of the owners of First Investment Bank
Tseko Minev and Ivaylo Mutafchiev
, who over the years have received loans worth over a billion levs from their own bank. Their offshore companies have also been used in schemes for racketeering the business with final beneficiary Delyan Peevski.

The Pandora Files contains data from 14 offshore registration and maintenance companies whose files have been leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). To study this array of nearly 12 million documents, the consortium brought together 600 journalists from around the world for a global investigation called the Pandora-Files. BIRD.BG is the Bulgarian partner in this investigation, which is the largest coordinated cooperation of investigative journalists to date.

Menko Menkov, the lawyer of Boyko Borisov, is suing Atanas Tchobanov and Dimitar Stoyanov in the Sofia City Court for the article “The Pandora Papers: The lawyer of Borisov and his ministers controls a Seychelles offshore“. Menko Menkov’s claim is for BGN 100,000. for tort. The case number is 1761/2022 in the Sofia City Court. The judge in the case is Vesela Ofitserska.

***

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