The Ministry of Justice found no evidence that Peevski and Jeliazkov were trafficking Bulgarian citizenship

One of the poorly commented motives for the US sanctions under the Magnitsky Act against Delyan Peevski and Ilko Jeliazkov is the settlement of Bulgarian citizenship against foreign investments, but without investments being made and without waiting for the five-year period required by law. The text published by the U.S. Treasury Department reads as follows:

In another example, as of early 2018, these two government officials ran a scheme to sell Bulgarian residency documents where company representatives purportedly paid bribes to Bulgarian officials to ensure their clients received citizenship documents immediately rather than making the $500,000 deposit or waiting the five years for a legitimate request to be processed.

Translation: In another example, since the beginning of 2018, these two officials have been running a scheme for the sale of Bulgarian residence documents, which alleges that company representatives paid bribes to Bulgarian officials to ensure that their clients would receive citizenship documents immediately and not after paying a deposit of $ 500,000 or after five years had passed to process a legally substantiated request.

At present, it is not known whether the Ministry of Interior or the Prosecutor’s Office have launched probes into the illegal issuance of Bulgarian identity documents to foreign investors.

In an attempt to clarify how the scheme worked, the BRRD asked the following question to the Ministry of Justice under the Access to Public Information Act (APIA): “For the period from the beginning of 2018 to date, how many foreign citizens have obtained Bulgarian citizenship without making the required deposit of $ 500,000 and waiting five years, as is the law?”

It’s not us, it’s the InvestBulgaria Agency.

The answer is that all 85 foreign citizens who received a Bulgarian passport against investments had regular documents with certificates from the Bulgarian Investment Agency for their investments. Here is the exact text in the letter:

“For the period from 01.01.2018 until now, a total of 85 foreign citizens have acquired Bulgarian citizenship by decrees of the Vice President of the Republic of Bulgaria on the grounds of Art. 14a of the Bulgarian Citizenship Act. The persons are nationals of the following countries: Russia, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, China, India, Bangladesh, USA, Algeria, Burundi, Dominica, Yemen, Libya, Ukraine, Turkey and Chad.

For a total of 5 of the foreign citizens who acquired Bulgarian citizenship in 2018, naturalization was revoked by decrees of the Vice President of the Republic of Bulgaria, issued in 2020.

At the time of examination of the applications for acquisition of Bulgarian citizenship of each of the applicants, certificates for their investments and investments under Art. 14a of the Bulgarian Citizenship Act, issued by the Bulgarian Investment Agency. The body that exercises control related to the procedure for establishing the circumstances of the investments made by the persons, as well as the period for their maintenance is the Bulgarian Investment Agency.

So it turns out that if the data of the Americans are correct, then the corruption scheme was spinning in the Bulgarian Investment Agency. In the period 2018 – July 2020, it was headed by Stamen Yanev, who then became Deputy Minister of Economy. After the caretaker government came to power, Yanev was returned to his post in the IBA by caretaker Minister of Economy Kiril Petkov.

The sale of Bulgarian passports or so-called. “golden visas” from the Bulgarian authorities is in the crosshairs of the European Commission, which insists this practice to be stopped. Prime Minister Borissov’s previous government, however, refused to change the law. Against the suspension of the “golden visas” in parliament worked particularly actively by DPS, the party of Delyan Peevski.

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This post is also available in: Български (Bulgarian)