Bulgarian police were likely involved in cigarette smuggling worth over 6 million euros. This is reported by UNN with reference to Euractiv.
Details
The public organization BOEC, known for its long-standing campaign to reform the Bulgarian judicial system, has published photographs of WhatsApp messages between police officers indicating high-level corruption. It became known from this that back in November 2024, six Bulgarian police officers discovered a suspicious truck that could have been carrying smuggled cigarettes.
Bulgarian authorities suspect that this cargo was part of a long-running smuggling network that supplied goods to the EU and the Middle East. According to BOEC, in addition to the police, politician Delyan Payevski, a member of parliament from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, who was sanctioned by the US and Britain on corruption charges, is involved in the scandal.
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