Yordanka Zapryanova was killed in her home at 47 Gorski Patnik Street in the capital’s Lozenets district
On April 24, 2007, a woman took to the grave testimonies against the alleged cocaine king Evelyn Banev – Brendo, and the sad thing is that it doesn’t matter anymore, because even though he was convicted in 3 countries, he is hiding in Ukraine with Ukrainian citizenship.
The murder of 50-year-old Yordanka Zapryanova hours before she was to testify in the prosecutor’s office against Brendo puts an end to the investigation into the shooting of her son Konstantin Dishliev 2 years earlier.
On May 14, 2005, bullets struck the 28-year-old man on 11 August Street in downtown Sofia while he was unlocking his Porsche Cayenne after dinner with his wife at an Indian restaurant. Some of the bullets hit his head, and the others hit his body, writes “Telegraf”.
A rupture
Before he was killed, Dishliev was a partner with Banev, who was married to the sister of his wife Desislava – Monika Dobrinova. Criminalists believe that several months before Dishliev’s execution, a rift occurred between him and his bajanak. There are several possible reasons. One is an investment of several million by the sea, for which an investigation by the then Financial Intelligence Agency, which later became part of DANS, began.
Dishliev’s company “Private Finance Union” cannot prove the origin of the money it invests and owns. Another possible reason for the rift is the diversion of funds from Dishliev. His removal is also not excluded due to fear of speaking out and endangering the drug channels with which Brendo is connected or as a punishment for having been a guarantor for a failed shipment of over 800 kg of cocaine, seized on a yacht with a Bulgarian crew in Spain.
It is not known whether there was a real danger that Konstantin Dishliev would talk about the origin of the money in the company, but 2 years later his mother was about to share what she had heard.
Cleaner
Killer kills Yordanka Zapryanova with 6 bullets in her apartment at 47 “Gorski patnik” street in the “Lozenets” quarter of the capital. The entrance door of the apartment was not broken. Criminal investigators assume that an acquaintance rang the doorbell and after it was opened, the killer fired. Most of the bullets hit the woman’s head.
The body was found by her bodyguard, who is not related to her boss. After the murder of her son, Yordanka lives in seclusion and hardly contacts anyone. One of her few close friends is her bodyguard.
Warning
It is said that two weeks before her murder, Zapryanova received a startling call, which she took as a warning. An anonymous male voice says over the phone, “How are you now? Are you okay? It’s only going to get worse for you.”
“The leaked information in the case against Brendo is the most likely reason for the murder of the witness,” declared the then chief prosecutor Boris Velchev. The Ministry of Internal Affairs clarifies that only the prosecutor’s office had information that Zapryanova was to be questioned on the appointed day. It is assumed that a magistrate shared, accidentally or not, about the upcoming interrogation, thereby signing the witness’s death sentence.
“The murdered woman could not be called a “key witness” and the prosecutor’s office cannot organize the protection of witnesses without signals of a threat against them,” commented the then city prosecutor of Sofia Nikolay Kokinov. According to him, there was no request from Yordanka Zaprianova to provide her with protection.
No evidence
No matter how much it is assumed that Banev ordered the murders of Konstantin Dishliev and his mother, there is no evidence against him. The cellars have also not been discovered.
It is claimed that Konstantin Dishliev told his mother about a conversation in which Brendo threatened him: “You’re a corpse, you know,” but she was unable to testify.
It is said that Zapryanova had to confirm before a magistrate that she knew that Brendo was behind her son’s companies and that the money was from drug smuggling, but the killer shut her up forever.
Schemes
The investigation into the case against Evelin Banev for participation in an organized criminal group for financial operations with money acquired in a criminal manner established that the company through which money was laundered from Colombia and Venezuela was “Private Finance Union”, whose boss is Dishliev. Banev received 6 years in prison in 2018 for laundering BGN 21 million from drug trafficking.
The drug group operated in Spain in the period 2004-2005. The defendants in the case are Banev’s wife Monika Dobrinova, his stepbrother Simo Karaichev and his widow Desislava Dishlieva. Karaichev received 3 years probation, and the ladies were acquitted.
Brendo was sentenced in Italy to 20 years in prison and in absentia in Romania to 10 years in prison for cocaine trafficking, but the Bulgarian court released him from custody, the ban on him leaving the country was lifted and he disappeared.
A foreigner
On September 6, 2021, Banev was arrested in a rented house near the Ukrainian capital Kiev together with two other people – a Romanian and a Moldovan. A laboratory for the production of synthetic drugs and cannabis was discovered there. Brendo turns out to be the holder of a completely regular Ukrainian passport, issued on December 15, 2015.
According to the Ukrainian constitution, the citizens of Ukraine cannot be extradited to another country, and therefore the case for Banev’s extradition at the request of Bulgaria, Romania and Italy ends with a refusal of extradition. This explains why Brendo chose Ukraine to hide. The Ukrainian Basic Law also does not allow dual citizenship, so Banev is actually no longer a Bulgarian citizen, lawyers explain.
Follow the latest news with BLITZ and on Telegram. Join the channel here
