site.btaSofia Mayor Asks European Prosecutor's Office to Investigate Possible Multi-Million Euro Waste Recycling Scam

The team of Sofia Mayor Vassil Terziev has asked the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO) to investigate a suspected multi-million euro scam in waste management under the previous local government tenure. "We have notified the European Public Prosecutor's Office regarding potential abuses in the Sofia waste management and the work of the Sofia Waste Processing Enterprise during the previous government of Sofia Municipality," Terziev told journalists on Tuesday, adding that the case is related to false data on the share of recycled plastics.

He pointed out that their tipoff to EPPO calls for an inspection of contracts financed with European funds and their implementation, for embezzlement of public funds, document fraud and fraud with European funds. Terziev stressed that they have also submitted alerts to the Bulgarian prosecution service but got unsatisfactory responses. "They said there was a crime but no one to hold accountable for it. We hope that a time will come when somebody will be held to account for the crimes that are being committed. We won't stop to alert the competent institutions," said the Mayor.

Sofia Deputy Mayor Nadezhda Bobcheva said there were malpractices in the period from 2016 to 2021, with the damage still to be calculated. According to estimates, they are worth BGN 2.5 million a year.

She explained that the same plastic waste was first reported as recyclable and then dumped in the landfill. That led to overreporting the quantity of plastic waste for recycling.