Former gambling mogul and oligarch Vassil Bojkov returned to Bulgaria from Dubai on Friday. He arrived in Sofia by air after announcing earlier in the day in a Facebook post that his flight would be landing around 3:30 pm.
"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 after spending 3 years in the United Arab Emirates, avoiding Bulgarian justice.
Upon arrival, he was arrested as was announced by the prosecution service shortly before his plane landed. It said that Bojkov would be remanded by Border Police because he is on an international 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 and then it would be up to the investigative authorities to decide whether to seek Bojkov's indefinite arrest or to release him.
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".
Return and arrest
There were two police minibuses waiting for the flight on which Bojkov was expected. Shortly after that, he emerged from the arrivals terminal amidst a large number of law-enforcers.
His lawyer told reporters that he was remanded for 24 hours but the Sofia City Prosecution Office (SCPO) released an announcement from which it transpired that Bojkov has been detained for 72 hours as a precautionary measure to secure his appearance before the judicial authorities.
The prosecution service also said that Bojkov "presented himself of his own free will at the Interior Ministry authorities at the Sofia Airport Border Crossing Checkpoint".
The prosecutors supervising the case will presently enter a motion in the Sofia City Court to order Bojkov's detention in custody.
Considering that he is a witness in another pre-trial proceeding at the SCPO, in connection with which requests for international legal assistance have been sent but have not been executed, the person will be summoned shortly to questioning in a witness capacity in that criminal proceeding, the announcement said.
In May, Bojkov wrote in a Facebook from Dubai that he was ready to return to Bulgaria as a protected witness.
Stoyan Baumeyer, who introduced himself as one of the businessman's layers at Sofia Airport, said that Vassil Bojkov was to be examined at the Interior Ministry hospital and then possibly questioned by the prosecution service.
He said also that Bojkov came back "quite voluntarily and at the earliest opportunity because until August 23 he did not have permission from the authorities in Dubai to leave the country for reasons of his safety".
Regarding Bojkov's motives for returning to Bulgaria, Baumeyer said that his main one is to clear his name in court.
Asked whether the murder of Alexey Petrov had opened the way for Vassil Bojkov to Bulgaria, the lawyer said, "I don't think you should put my client in roles, in films that he doesn't even know were cast." According to the lawyer, Vasil Bojkov and Alexey Petrov have nothing in common and their paths have never crossed.
Baumeyer advised the media to follow Bojkov's social media profiles where "there will be more information, step by step, about everything".
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