Pandora: Nickolay Mladenov registered an offshore company. Without activity, but did not declare it to the UN

Former Defense and Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov has registered an offshore company in Seychelles through a Swiss intermediary. This happened in August 2013, a few months after Mladenov left Bulgarian politics and a week after becoming UN special envoy for Iraq. The diplomat took over as UN Representative in Iraq on 2 August 2013, and the firm Afron Enterprises Ltd. It was established on August 9.

The BRRD contacted Mladenov, who explained that after the end of his ministerial term he intended to start consulting business, but the opportunity to work at the UN changed his intentions and he forgot about the registered company that had never done business and had no accounts and financial flows.

“I have always respected journalists and their drive to get to the truth and worked with them in the interests of transparency. That is why yesterday I spoke with Mr. Tchobanov from bird.bg and I thank him for his responsiveness and desire to clarify things.

The registration of a company that appears in my name has never worked and has never had financial flows.

In 2013, after the end of the mandate, I decided to start freelancing, a new beginning. For this purpose, I decided to register a company through which to work. I contacted Swiss financial advisors and started correspondence with them.

Then I got an offer from the UN and my plans changed.”

The disturbing fact, however, is that the company was established a few days after Mladenov started working at the United Nations. His appointment was officially announced by Ban Ki-moon on August 2, 2013, and in all documents the company was established on August 9, 2013. This date was entered in manuscript by the already appointed UN Special Representative on the scanned contract with the Swiss company SFM Corporate Services S.A. for company registration.

Asked about this discrepancy, Mladenov could not recall how the registration process went, but said it began before his UN term.

The documents from the Pandora Files show that SFM has invoiced 600 euros per year for the maintenance of the registration, which was active until 2018.

UN: We don’t know anything about Afron Enterprises

BRRD contacted the office of the UN Secretary General and asked whether Afron Enterprises was included in the property declaration submitted by Nickolay Mladenov. By statute, all employees of the world organization must declare their assets, but these documents are confidential.

From the response signed by the spokesman of the UN Secretary General it is understood that they do not know anything about this company and it has not been declared.

Following his tenure as UN Special Representative in Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov was appointed UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. In December 2020, the UN Security Council approved his nomination by Antonio Guterres as the UN Special Representative for Libya. Mladenov, however, refused this post, citing personal and family reasons, and has not been involved in active politics since.

In the Pandora Files there are nearly 200 persons connected to Bulgaria

Swiss intermediary SFM Corporate Services S.A. is one of 14 offshore companies 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.

Publications in more than 150 media outlets around the world began on Oct. 3 and reveal secret deals and hidden assets of more than 330 politicians and high-ranking government officials, including 35 state leaders from more than 90 countries and territories.

Among the current and former leaders illuminated by the investigation are King Abdullah II of Jordan, the prime ministers of Côte d’Ivoire and the Czech Republic, the presidents of Ukraine, Ecuador, Kenya and Gabon, close to President Putin, former presidents of El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay and Honduras, former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and many others.

The Bulgarian politicians whose names appear directly in the Pandora Files are two: Delyan Peevski and Nikolay Mladenov. 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.

It is possible that among the Bulgarians with offshore companies in the Pandora Files there are relatives or strawmen of politicians, and this is the subject of further investigation.

Globally, the amounts hidden in offshore destinations for which data are available in the Pandora Files are estimated at several trillion dollars. In the Bulgarian segment, data are available for large-scale detriment of Bulgarian taxpayers by at least BGN 1 billion.

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