Toplofikatsia – France: How a boss of the “warm” in Pernik gave a 6.5 million loan to Kovachki’s father-in-law for a villa on the Cote d’Azur

Bozhidar Zhivkov and his wife Vasilka are the owners of the French company V Property, which in 2013 bought a luxury villa in Mandle La Napoul – a small municipality on the Cote d’Azur next to the famous resort of Cannes. This was done with a loan of BGN 6.5 million, provided by the Bulgarian company Aura Star 2005. The company is not even registered under the VAT Act and is owned by a boss from Pernik “Toplofikacia”. Zhivkovi are the parents of the wife of businessman Hristo Kovachki. Since 2019 Bozhidar Zhivkov is a municipal councilor in Pernik and had to declare the property and the loan to KPKONPI, but did not. In a conversation with our reporter, he denied owning such a property.

However, the documents from the French Trade Register are categorical. Bozhidar Zhivkov and Vasilka Zhivkovi created V Property precisely in order to purchase this property and this is described in most detail in the statute of the company, which is notarized. The villa itself, which is located at 555 bd Jean Saint Martin in Mandelieu-La-Napoule, consists of a ground floor with a living room, a fireplace, a study, an equipped kitchen (even the brand of the LG dishwasher, a room with a bathroom and a toilet is indicated. On the floor there are three rooms, solarium, terrace, two bathrooms and toilets. In addition, the property has a swimming pool with a separate building and a garage. All this is located on three cadastral plots – 109, 110 and 114 with a total area of 3800 sq.m.

A separate mortgage document describes a loan of BGN 6.5 million, given by the company “Aura Star 2005” to Zhivkovi in a personal capacity. The loan was granted on the same date as the villa – September 2, 2013. It is for a period of 10 years with 5.5% interest. As a guarantee for the loan, Zhivkov’s shares in the company V Property and thus the ownership of the property were registered.

A simple calculation shows that in order to repay the loan, spouses must allocate BGN 57,000 from their family budget. monthly for 10 years. Perhaps this is not a problem for Bozhidar Zhivkov and his wife, whose father-in-law is multimillionaire Hristo Kovachki. But in 2019, Bozhidar Zhivkov became a municipal councilor and should have declared this loan and the villa. However, he denied in a telephone conversation that he was the owner of such a property.

6.5 million BGN by a company without VAT registration

At the time of the loan Miglena Petrishki was a member of the board of Toplofikatsia Pernik. Currently, she is a representative of the English company “Bingham Management”, which owns 100% of the capital of “Bovi Tour” EOOD, which in turn owns the capital of “Toplofikatsia – Pernik”. The owner of Bingham was nominally declared the Cypriot citizen Stefanus Constantinou.

Family connection, millions and dummies

Practically all districts related to Hristo Kovachki are owned by strawmen. He himself modestly claims that he is only a consultant on these energy capacities. As BRRD already wrote, the actual owner of Brickell in the Bulgarian Trade Register is officially declared 82-year-old British David Fordham. At the same address as Fordham is the owner of Toplofikatsia “Pleven” Elizabeth Clayer Woolham. It owns the company Cataland Ltd., also with 1 pound of capital and 1 pound of account balance. The modest British company owns 100% of the shares of the Pleven district heating company. The owner of DHC “Burgas” is 81-year-old Stuart Ralph Poppleton. He owns the Burgas district heating company through the company Bovard Ltd. Belize citizen Erlin May Rodriguez owns TPP Bobov Dol and Ksenia Toma from Cyprus owns TPP Sliven.

The “straw people” who conceal the beneficial owners are announced with notarized declarations, which are obviously false documents, but the prosecutor’s office does nothing to track down the actual owners and punish the persons who have submitted the fraudulent documents in the Commercial Register. The example of district heating owners also illustrates the impotence (or reluctance) of the state to shed light on the actual owners of offshore companies under the Measures Against Money Laundering Act.

In this case, however, we have traceable property for millions, inexplicable loans from phantom companies and most of all, a family trace to the consultant Kovachki.

Meanwhile, it became clear that Toplofikatsia – Pernik will want to increase the price of heating by 60%. Because luxury villas on the Cote d’Azur do not swallow millions only when buying, but must also be kept ready for the recreation of happy owners.

How do you get this data?

The investigation is a pure product of data journalism, without the use of sources and signals. Recently, data from the French register of property owners and the register of business owners in France have been freely available as open data. The BRRD team carried out complex computer processing to cross the two data arrays and extract from them the persons associated with Bulgaria who own real estate through companies.

The list already includes public figures such as
Vasil Bozhkov
and
Krasimir Gergov
, but there are new hits. Among them is former Energy Minister Milko Kovachev, who has furnished himself with a three-story apartment near Biarritz. Other “operationally interesting” persons appear in the register, which the BRRD studies methodically. In order to confirm the data from the open register, the Cadastre of France must be consulted and the official documents from the registers of companies and property owners must be extracted against payment.

***

Разследващата журналистика е разузнаването на гражданите. BIRD се финансира от дарения. Ние не публикуваме реклами. Не получаваме държавни субсидии. Не разчитаме на грантове. Финансирането чрез малки дарения от читатели е гаранция за нашата независимост. Включете се, за да продължим да разкриваме злоупотреби и да държим отговорни властимащите. Използваме Вашите пари за хонорари на журналистите, командировки, изграждане и поддръжка на нашите информационни системи, такси за фирмени и имотни регистри у нас и по света, придобиване на техника и специално оборудване, осигуряване на нашата безопасност и други важни работни мисии. Важно: Ако дарявате всеки месец това ще ни даде възможност да планираме и организираме нашата работа. Благодарим Ви! Нас ни има, защото Вас Ви има!

This post is also available in: Български (Bulgarian)