site.btaUPDATED Former Gambling Mogul Vassil Bojkov Is Back in Sofia

Gambling mogul and oligarch Vassil Bojkov returned to Bulgaria Friday. He said so in a Facebook post after announcing earlier in the day that he will be landing in Sofia at around 3:30 pm Friday.

"Today (Friday) I am coming back home. After all the obstacles that the Geshev's (former Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev) prosecution office and other instruments created for me. I will land in Sofia around 3:30 pm," Bojkov wrote on Facebook in the morning. 

Who is Bojkov

Once considered to be the wealthiest Bulgarian with assets worth between BGN 1.5 and 3 billion, Bojkov lost his gambling empire in early 2020 when Parliament outlawed private lotteries, and he was charged with evasion of more than BGN 700 million in gambling licensing fees, money laundering, extortion, bribery, murder, abetting in murder, attempted rape, leading an organized crime group since 2014, trading in influence, and unlawful possession of cultural assets. The businessman left the country before the full-scale crackdown against him and is now in the United Arab Emirates. Bulgaria has unsuccessfully tried to have him extradited.

In a series of disclosures which he started posting on Facebook in May 2021, Bojkov alleged that he had been forced by then Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov to pay them a 20% cut of his business earnings, that he had tried to sell half of his lottery business to a Czech company for BGN 1 billion but the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister caught wind of it and tried to force him to transfer a majority interest in it to a person named by them, and that they had attacked his business when he declined to do their bidding. Borissov and Goranov have dismissed Bojkov's allegations as downright lies and the prosecution service has found no evidence of any wrongdoing. When a new government came to power - for a short stint - later in 2021, Borissov and Goranov were briefly arrested over Bojkov's allegations but were promptly released and a court subsequently ruled that their detention had been unlawful.

Bojkov was sanctioned by the US for major corruption under the Global Magnitsky Act in June of 2021.  In February 2023, he was also sanctioned by the UK "for serious corruption and abuse of public institution funds". 

The return

There were two minibuses of the police and the judicial security unit.

The Interior Ministry said earlier in the day that they were aware of Bojov's planned return. "Once Bojkov sets foot on Bulgarian territory, he will be brought to a prosecutor. Potentially, he will be charged, remanded in custody and so on," Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov said.

The prosecution service said for its part that Bojkov would be remanded by Border Police because he is on a wanted list and because a 72-hour arrest warrant had been issued for him. Once remanded, he would be taken to a prosecutor to be charged in three cases. Also, he will be questioned. It is up to the investigative authorities to decide whether to seek Bojkov's indefinite arrest or to release him.

In May, Bojkov wrote in a Facebook from Dubai that he was ready to return to Bulgaria as a protected witness.