site.btaUPDATED Law-enforcing Operation Targets Customs Agency Director, Deputy Director

The State Agency for National Security (SANS) Wednesday announced that it was holding an unspecified operation in Sofia and other towns. Following news reports that the operation has led to the arrest of Customs Agency Director Petya Bankova, Bankova told reporters that she is “the first victim of the new anti-corruption commission” but “is not giving up”. In a pointed comment for the press later in the day, Finance Minister Assen Vassilev, who put Bankova at the helm of the National Customs Agency in late February as part of a large-scale reform of the revenue administration, said that unless the operation produces "serious evidence", it would "boil down to an attempt to intimidate the Customs Agency chief, who started to intercept the smuggling channels and fired 20 customs officers on alerts from foreign customs agencies, governments and services". 

He said that the outgoing Prime Minister and himself had not been informed of the operation. 

Speaking to the press as she got into a police car together with her lawyer, Adelina Nateva, Bankova would not confirm the reports about her arrest. "I want to stop contraband trade, which is holding this country back," Bankova said. She believes that the operation may have to do with politics and with her work.

Asked to confirm reports that the actions against her are connected with the smuggling channels controlled by some Nikolai "Paskal" Nikolov, she said she does not know him. 

Lawyer Nateva told the press that Bankova’s home and office have been searched, and so has been the office of her deputy, Lyudmil Marinov.

According to Nateva, the prosecution service has not been notified of these actions as yet.

No official information is available about the nature of the operation and what caused the possible arrest. Nateva said that a pre-trial proceeding has opened.

Her lawyer said that both Bankova and Marinov are former State Agency for National Security employees and that her client did not get on well with the SANS head, Plamen Tonchev.

The law-enforcers seized from Bankova's office her computer and notes regarding smuggling channels on which she has been working, the lawyer said.

Finance Minister Vassilev said he "strongly hope that this operation was not aimed against the efficient work of Ms Petya Bankova". "You know that ever since she became head of the Customs Agency, we have had record-setting amounts of drugs seized, including 170 kg of heroin at a port. Also, over 20 customs officers were fired after an alert from the Austrian government and several other foreign services. Among those were chiefs and shift supervisors at key border checkpoints used for smuggling channels". 

Vassilev said: "We have customs officers from the US at Kapitan Andreevo and in Burgas. We expect customs officers from the UK at Kapitan Andreevo as well. Let's wait and see what evidence SANS and the anti-corruption commission will produce. If corruption or any other problem is revealed, we will take adequate measures. The information we have, unofficially, is when the law-enforcers got in, they seized from her desk files with investigations on smuggling channels." 

Asked who would benefit from what is happening at the Customs Agency, Vassilev said it is "whoever protects the smuggling rings".