The money of exhibitors at Expo 2020 in Dubai has disappeared

Nearly 100 000 BGN of the sales of the Bulgarian exhibiting companies at Expo 2020 in Dubai have disappeared from an account in a Dubai bank controlled by the Ministry of Economy. The D.A.’s looking for them. This is another scandalous episode of the Bulgarian participation in the world exhibition.

The amounts from the sales of vials, cosmetics, souvenirs and Bulgarian food products in the Bulgarian pavilion at Expo 2020 have accumulated in an account with Emirates NBD Bank, with which only our commercial attaché in Dubai Dimitar Dimitrov has the right to operate. He is an employee of the Ministry of Economy, not of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and during the exhibition he was the director of the Bulgarian pavilion in Dubai.

At the end of 2021, the guarantee for the replica of the Panagyurishte gold treasure of 111,446 dirhams, previously imported by the organizers, was also restored to the same account. That money has also evaporated. The case has been reported by the affected parties and it is being investigated by the prosecutor’s office, but there are no results so far.

False documents

The end of the activities under “Expo 2020” is on 30.06.2022, when the license of the Bulgarian pavilion expires. Then the Ministry of Economy ordered by letter 54-00-2742/27.06.2020 the Commercial Attaché Dimitar Dimitrov to transfer the amount available to the account in Dubai to the bank account of DZZD Bulgaria EXPO 2020 and close the account.

In response to this letter, Dimitrov submitted to the Ministry of Economy a payment order from July 4, 2022 for the transfer of 190,722 dirhams (about BGN 97,560) to the account of the association DZZD Bulgaria EXPO 2020 with the Bulgarian Development Bank. It also presents a printout of the account for the period 01.01.2021 – 12.04.2022.

Both documents turned out to be fake. The money has never been ordered and has not arrived in the Bulgarian account of DZZD Bulgaria EXPO 2020, a check of the BRRD found. And the bank statement lacks cash withdrawals for over 200,000 dirhams.

Technology Reveals Fraud

Dimitar Dimitrov does not seem to have known that an email of the association DZZD Bulgaria EXPO 2020 was registered in the bank, to which the bank automatically sends printouts from the account. The BRRD accessed these messages, studied them and validated them for authenticity through the DKIM code available in them.

From the data in them it appears that the printout presented by Dimitrov has nothing to do with reality. It lacks cash withdrawals of large amounts.

In particular, the bank statement shown by Dimitrov lacks the following cash withdrawals:

20 000 dirhams on 07.02.2022
15 000 dirhams on 15.02.2022
50 000 dirhams on 28.02.2022
15 000 dirhams on 07.03.2022
20 000 dirhams on 31.03.2022
20 000 dirhams on 21.04.2022
10 000 dirhams on 03.05.2022
82,845.72 dirhams from 24/06/2022

Or a total of 232,845.72 dirhams.

Of this amount, only 14,000 dirhams submitted by Dimitrov to the manager of the association are available at the Ministry of Economy.

In addition, the form for the final transfer of 190,722 dirhams, which was presented by Dimitrov, is not the current form for currency transfers of Emirates NBD and such an order has not been received at all by this bank. This is written in a correspondence of an employee of Emirates NBD with DZZD Bulgaria EXPO 2020, which our editorial office has.

On the other hand, the BSDA confirmed from two independent sources that the account of DZZD Bulgaria EXPO 2020 with BDB has never received a currency transfer for 190,722 dirhams from Emirates NBD Bank.

It is shocking that the ministry, then led by Kornelia Ninova, applied Dimitrov’s fake documents in the civil case that the association DZZD Bulgaria EXPO 2020 leads against the ministry in order to receive its money and pay off the exhibiting companies. To top it off, the fakes bear the stamp of the Ministry of Economy and Industry “True to the original”.

Dimitar Dimitrov /in the leading photo/ is a former procurator of the considered “bad apple” Investbank, also known for the fact that millions disappear from the accounts of its clients. Dimitrov was appointed commercial attaché in Dubai back in 2005 at the end of the rule of Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha’s cabinet.

For several days, the BRRD tried to contact Dimitar Dimitrov’s Dubai number to no avail, which included an answering machine. The same thing happens with his Bulgarian personal number. According to unofficial information, Dimitrov is currently in Bulgaria and is on sick leave.

In response to our question where is the money from the Dubai account, the Ministry of Economy received a laconic answer, signed by Secretary General Emilia Yaneva.

In connection with your request for information on the location of 190 722,17 EAD who were in an account of the Bulgarian Pavilion at Expo 2020 in Dubai with a bank account 1015787566701 Emirates NBD Bank, I would like to inform you of the following:

In connection with a signal by the Governor of DZZD BULGARIA EXPO 2020, the competent authorities in the Republic of Bulgaria have been approached.
Currently, the investigative bodies are carrying out the relevant inspections within the deadlines set by the PPC.
The Ministry of Economy and Industry fully cooperates to clarify the case in order to protect the state interest.

“The Black Hole” EXPO 2020 is growing

The Bulgarian participation in EXPO 2020 was accompanied by numerous scandals. As BRRD wrote in a previous article, behind the association “Expo 2020” sit businessman associated with lawmaker Delyan Peevski Ioannis Giofkos and Lyubomir Ganchev, who is close to the former Minister of Economy Emil Karanikolov. Karanikolov was fired after a memorable trip to Dubai at the height of the covid crisis over the delivery of dates, as well as his alleged links with the same oligarch.

A public unrest caused both the deplorable appearance of the Bulgarian pavilion and the appearances in it of the drug lord’s wife Taki . The most noticeable furniture in the Bulgarian pavilion turned out to be the refrigerator with the dairy products of the company “Lakrima”, which is also associated with Peevski.

BIRD.BG also revealed that with the money for the pavilion, Giofkos, also known as Agent Detelin, he furnished himself with a Mercedes AMG 63. Sources of the UAE claim that the origin of the funds for the expensive vehicle is related to a commission returned by the construction company of the pavilion to Giofkos.

Then it became clear from the “Dubai Files” that the builder of the pavilion Ralitsa Ivanova owns a record 21 properties for a Bulgarian in Dubai – four villas, apartments and retail space.

The Bulgarian participation in the exhibition was called a “black hole” by Kornelia Ninova. At a briefing at the Ministry on 11.02.2022, she also announced an investigation of KPKONPI, which will be submitted to the Prosecutor’s Office.

But the disappearance of the money from the Dubai account occurred precisely under Ninova’s rule, and suspicions of falsifying the accounting documents fell on her employee. In addition, the presentation to the court of the false documents with the stamp “True to the original” also happened while Ninova was a minister.

According to the BRRD, Dimitar Dimitrov was even reappointed to his post as a commercial attaché in Dubai and this happened after it was already clear that the money from the Dubai account controlled only by him had disappeared in the “black hole”.

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