site.btaPM: Malta Authorities Provide 36 Invoices for MRF Leader Peevski’s Flights Worth EUR 5 Mln

The authorities in Malta have provided invoices for 36 flights worth a total of EUR 5 million, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said on Friday during parliamentary Question Time, referring to flights taken by Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) Floor Leader Delyan Peevski, and companies supplying guardrails.

Companies involved in the supply of road safety barriers had diverted funds to a “cash-box company”, which in turn had paid for flights taken by the MRF Floor Leader, Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said at a briefing at the Council of Ministers on September 18.

An aircraft had been purchased, and it was clear which company had purchased it, the Prime Minister said on Friday, calling on the National Assembly to invite the Interior Minister and allow him to disclose more documentary information on these cases.

“When we directed the Economic Police to the Ministry of Innovation and Digital Transformation, within two hours so many things came to light that thousands of people could not have uncovered by working around the clock,” Radev said. “It is a real jungle there,” he added.

Regarding the guardrails, he said there were more than 200 companies established under the Obligations and Contracts Act, with some of their management members receiving salaries of BGN 20,000. “This is money being siphoned off,” Radev commented. He said that the investigating authorities were dealing with the matter and that wherever there were suspicions, they were being investigated.

Innovation and Digital Transformation Minister Ivan Vasilev said on September 20 that the information released about the guardrails and Peevski’s flights was based on an analysis of thousands of documents concerning numerous public procurement procedures. If Interior Ministry employees had had to do the work, it would have taken them months, but thanks to the SIGMA system, it was completed in days, he stressed.

In 2021, Peevski was designated by the United States under the Global Magnitsky Act for corruption and influence peddling. The US authorities described him as an oligarch who had “regularly engaged in corruption”, including through influence peddling and bribes to shield himself from public scrutiny and exert control over key institutions and sectors in Bulgaria. Peevski is challenging the designation in a US court, with his lawyers arguing that there is no evidence of wrongdoing by their client. In 2023, the United Kingdom also sanctioned Peevski over alleged attempts to exert control over key institutions and sectors through bribery and the use of his media empire.