© Screenshot “Anti-Corruption Fund”
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“Years ago, I was warned that I would become an accused as a witness. At the time, I didn’t believe it was possible. I was released from prison 10 minutes ago, where I had been without a sentence for 10 months. Now I believe anything is possible.”
These are the words of Veselin Denkov, known by the nickname “Veso the Beard”, in an interview on the show Sasho Dikov “Eurodicoff”, broadcast on Friday night (June 4). He was released under house arrest minutes before being televised, after spending more than nine months in custody on charges of involvement in a criminal group for usury and extortion. Denkov was detained in September 2020 on entering the country through the Kalotina border checkpoint with Serbia.
The reason for his interview is the trailer of new investigation of the “Anti-Corruption Fund” “Quick Control List: The History of Veselin Denkov and Specialized Justice”. It is clear from him that in order to be released from custody, Denkov was asked for 100,000 euros from the woman he lives with – Ivayla Bakalova. From the preliminary video and recordings, the voices of unidentified men can be heard, who say that about 100 thousand euros will be needed, but not less. “I started recording things they tell me about themselves. To assimilate what they tell me. Because it was monstrous,” Ivayla Bakalova said in the ACF video. (The whole trailer – at the end of the text)
It was Denkov released under house arrest on the day the Anti-Corruption Fund released the video in social networks. He told Eurocom that back in 2015 he had been warned that a witness could be charged, that his passport would be confiscated, that there would be seizures by the confiscation commission. He was then a witness in a fraud case filed by Stanka Marangozova. She was found shot in her car in the capital’s Mladost district on October 10, 2019.
His lawyer, Ina Lulcheva, told the Anti-Corruption Fund that he had contacted her last year and said there were reports that charges were being prepared against him. “He returned knowing he would be charged,” Lulcheva said.
The businessman owns restaurants in Sofia. After his detention a secret witness was quoted in the 24 Chasa newspaper as saying that Denkov was the financial intermediary between Vasil Bozhkov and protesters. This was also the main version spread in the media that it was paid for and provocateurs of the protests were organized.
The accusation for which it is however, he was detained for participating in an organized criminal group for racketeering and extortion, whose leaders are Ivaylo and Alexander Georgievi (father and son), known as Pifa and Little Pif. They own pawnshops mainly in the Lyulin district. According to the prosecutor’s office, there are six more people in the group who acted from January 2018 to August 28, 2020. Then the Pifos were arrested during an action by the special prosecutor’s office.
“I claim to be went to the protests. But I definitely did not finance them. I haven’t even bought a lemonade or a flag from the square. “ Denkov also told Eurocom. According to him, while he was detained, various intermediaries demanded between 50 and 100 thousand euros for his release. He did not specify whether the proposals came from court or prosecutors, but said he did not give money because he did not want to join a corruption scheme. Denkov was not questioned or commented on links to the Georgievs and the criminal group charge.
“I believed that the law I believed in and kept would protect me. It turned out that the law worked for those who thought it was law,” said the businessman, who defines what happened to him as “kidnapping for extortion”.
Denkov told Eurocom that he did not know Bozhkov and that he spoke briefly with him once when he was a guest at one of his restaurants years ago. In an interview with “Alternativa” two weeks ago, in response to a question, Bozhkov said that he knew Denkov very vaguely and could not be his mediator, because he is a mediator of someone you trust.
