Bulgarian crimelords and their associates are concentrating on whistleblower journalists exposing hyperlinks between OneCoin, Bulgarian organized crime and native authorities.

As a substitute of investigating OneCoin and the continuing prison actions surrounding the Ponzi scheme, Lawyer Basic Ivan Geshev frames whistleblower studies as “an alleged plot to incriminate him and high-ranking magistrates and cops”.

Whereas I disagree with the synopsis that Ruja Ignatova was murdered on a yacht in 2018, again in February a report from BIRD offered damning proof of corruption and safety of criminals by Bulgarian authorities.

On the middle of the “Ruja was killed on a yacht” principle is Bulgarian crimelord Christophoros Amanatidis-Taki, who’s believed to be hiding out in Dubai.

BIRD’s report claimed Taki ordered the hit on Ruja Ignatova.

Taki ordered the homicide of the cryptoqueen Ruja Ignatova, which occurred in November 2018 on a yacht within the Ionian Sea, greater than a 12 months after as Ruja was final seen in Athens.

The physique of the murdered girl was minimize up and thrown into the water.

BIRD’s reporting relies on a leaked police report from the secure of Lyubomir Ivanov, former head of the prison division of Bulgaria’s Nationwide Police.

Ivanov was shot useless underneath murky circumstances in March 2022.

Taki is nice pals with Mikhail Naumov, head of Bulgaria’s Federal Murder Division.

The paperwork additionally element quite a few luxurious yacht journeys taken by Mikhail Naumov and his household, all purportedly funded by Taki and his associates.

When Chook offered the paperwork to Bulgarian authorities, Public Prosecutors verified them as genuine however clarified no one was investigating Ignatova’s demise or corruption linked to Naumov.

Since then BIRD’s reporter behind the article, Dimitar Stoyanov and Atanas Tchobanov, have been sued by Razmig Kerope “Ami” Chakaryan.

Chakaryan, who wasn’t talked about in BIRD’s reporting, is an affiliate of Taki’s.

Charkaryan filed two lawsuits in opposition to BIRD journalist Dimitar Stoyanov and three in opposition to BIRD editor-in-chief Atanas Tchobanov.

A sixth lawsuit was filed in opposition to Nikolay Marchenko from Bivol.bg.

All six lawsuits are understood to have been filed on the Sofia District Court docket and every demanded BGN 10,000 (5,130 euros) for alleged defamation and “ethical harm”.

All lawsuits have been introduced in opposition to the person journalists, slightly than their media shops.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Venture (OCCRP), of which BIRD is a member group of, claims Chakaryan lawsuits are strategic lawsuits in opposition to public participation (SLAPPs).

The Worldwide Press Institute claims the lawsuits “clearly characterize retaliatory and vexatious authorized actions supposed to strain professional watchdog reporting.”

Consistent with Chakaryan’s lawsuits, Bulgarian authorities are additionally concentrating on Stoyanov and Tchobanov.

As reported by the Worldwide Press Institute, on March sixteenth Lawyer Basic Ivan Geshev held a press-conference

describ(ing) reporting by journalists as a part of an alleged plot to incriminate him and the high-ranking magistrates and cops.

Whereas Geshev didn’t determine the journalists instantly, a display behind him projected the names of Tchobanov and Stoyanov.

Geshev’s workplace adopted up with an seventh press-release, by which they revealed unredacted correspondence between Dimitar Stoyanov and a confidential supply.

In response to Geshev’s workplace leaking protected correspondence, the Bulgarian division of the Affiliation of European Journalists issued a press-release on April tenth;

The self-serving publication by the prosecutor’s workplace of images from the communication of journalist Dimitar Stoyanov is an unscrupulous violation of the confidentiality of journalistic sources.

Journalists speaking to sources is just not against the law by default. The dramaturgical building “organized prison group to discredit the chief prosecutor” can not justify such a scandalous motion, which, other than placing Stoyanov in peril, is a warning to each journalist and his sources.

Stoyanov’s leaked supply has since been arrested on drug possession fees. OCCRP studies the arrest got here

shortly earlier than he was about to provide an interview to Stoyanov in regards to the function of an individual near Taki and named within the paperwork.

Geshev’s workplace is utilizing the drug possession arrest to say Stoyanov and different Bulgarian journalists are working with

an organized prison group established for the aim of acquiring proceeds from prison actions, cash laundering and tax crimes

On April thirteenth Geshev’s workplace introduced it has initiated a prison investigation and pre-trial proceedings.

The Committee to Shield Journalists moreover reported on April twenty fourth;

The prosecutor’s workplace introduced that it had began a pretrial investigation into an unidentified variety of members of “an organized prison group” who allegedly participated in affect peddling to “discredit and hinder” regulation enforcement and senior authorities officers.

These convicted face a jail sentence of as much as six years.

A couple of weeks after the prison investigation announcement, Geshev was the goal of a purported failed assassination try.

Bulgaria’s chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev has escaped unscathed after a big explosion occurred Monday close to his automobile which the authorities have described as a focused assault on him.

Attackers had positioned a bomb at a bend within the street the place visitors needed to gradual, Borislav Sarafov, head of the Nationwide Investigation Service, mentioned in response to native information web site Mediapool.

They detonated the bomb at precisely the second Geshev’s automobile went previous, he mentioned, describing it as a “professionally ready try, and clearly effectively executed.”

“Clearly the bomb was supposed to kill,” he mentioned. However, there have been no accidents.

No group has claimed duty for Monday’s alleged assault.

How handy.

OneCoin launched in 2014 and grew to be a $4 billion greenback Ponzi scheme, operated overtly from Bulgaria’s capital Sofia.

Though the Ponzi scheme collapsed in 2017, OneCoin has continued to function from the identical workplace as a pyramid scheme.

Over the previous 9 years and thus far, Bulgarian authorities have failed to research OneCoin or make any related arrests.

The one OneCoin arrest in Bulgaria thus far is Irina Dilkinska, on the behest of US authorities again in 2021.