Due to high public and media interest and after permission of the supervising prosecutors under Art. 198 of the Criminal Procedure Code, Sofia City Prosecutor's Office (SCPO) provides information about a pre-trial proceeding initiated on 23.11.2020 for the fact that from October 2012 to December 2015 an organized criminal group, established for the selfish purpose of committing crimes in Bulgaria and abroad under Art. 253, para 1 of the Criminal Code (money laundering) – a crime under Art. 321, parа 3, in conjunction with para 2 of the Criminal Code.
Within the pre-trial proceedings, numerous procedural and investigative actions have been carried out, including interrogations of more than 20 witnesses, among them former magistrates, member of the 49th National Assembly B. Borisov and others.
In the course of the investigation numerous written and physical evidence were collected. A search and seizure was carried out, forensic accounting and economic expertise were prepared, European Investigation Orders (EIOs) were sent to the Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of Cyprus and, following their execution, the results were annexed to the case. Numerous documents have been collected and analyzed following the disclosure of bank secrecy, tax and social security information, declarations of CCCCIAP, etc.
After a detailed analysis and verification of all collected materials, a team of prosecutors from Sofia City Prosecutor's Office has concluded that there is no evidence that would indicate in an undoubted and categorical way that the crime for which the pre-trial proceedings were initiated, namely the crime under Art.321 of the Criminal Code and for money laundering consisting in the purchase of real estate in the Kingdom of Spain, Barcelona.
The statements of witnesses do not contain allegations that B. Borisov personally or through an intermediary assigned the transaction in March 2013 for purchase of real estate in Spain - a house with an adjacent area and a swimming pool, located in Barcelona, and to have provided means for its purchase in the amount of nearly 3 million euros. There are no allegations that he instructed anyone else to conceal the actual rights or that the witness Borisov to have instructed for the property to be contributed, or that he personally or through an intermediary instructed the transfer of currency for the purpose of renting another immovable property - a shop in Barcelona, the Kingdom of Spain.
The supervising prosecutors have concluded that the allegations for independent actions of Borisov, namely that the latter had purchased the house in Barcelona, contained in the testimonies of witnesses Chenalova and Bakalova, cannot justify the necessary degree of firmness the accusatory thesis. Their analysis reveals that they do not provide specific, categorical and consistent evidence concerning essential elements of the composition of the crime under Art. 321 of the Criminal Code, namely the time /periodicity/ of its implementation, as well as the individual acts of Borisov, through which he demonstrated his membership of an organised criminal association, for which the criminal proceedings were initiated.
In these parts, the testimonies of the witnesses are unspecific and inconsistent, presented in a summarizing and declarative form, their testimonies have the character of an assumption and are based on an analysis made by the witnesses themselves of their subjective impressions on facts and circumstances that cannot be verified in the course of the pre-trial proceedings by the relevant procedural means. The testimony of the two witnesses is not supported by the other evidence in the case.
From the accounting expertise prepared in the case, in the part analyzing the movements on the accounts of B. Borisov, no transactions relevant to the present proceedings were found. It is clear from the expert's conclusion that the house in Barcelona was purchased with the funds of a commercial company with the object of organizing and carrying out domestic and international tourism and related tourist services, etc.
The prosecutors also found that the evidence in the case does not contain relevant information about prior agreements of a criminal nature, about a lasting and stable agreement between three or more persons to commit crimes under Article 253, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code - money laundering. "In the course of the criminal proceedings, no evidence was gathered from which a categorical conclusion can be drawn that real estate was purchased with funds obtained from a crime," the ruling of the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office states. The existence of criminal links between a group of persons - Bulgarian citizens, including B. Borisov, cannot be judged from the information contained in the materials received through European investigation orders to the Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of Cyprus.
In regard with the lack of evidence of a crime the prosecutors from Sofia City Prosecutor's Office terminated the pre-trial proceedings initiated for participation in an organized criminal group. In the prosecutor's decree, they have also analyzed in detail all the features and circumstances that, according to the law, must be present in order to justify the indictment of a criminal group.
In the course of the investigation, no evidence has been gathered from which a sole and categorical conclusion can be drawn that the immovable property located in Barcelona has been purchased with money obtained from a crime. It is established from the documentary, oral and physical evidence that the acquisition of the property for the sum of EUR 2 900 000 in Barcelona by the witness А. Chaushev has been made under a mandate contract with the trading company T. Т. С. According to the annexed documentary evidence at the relevant time in March 2013, the company had the cash to purchase the property which it had acquired from its commercial activities. For the reasons set out above, the supervising prosecutors have concluded that there is no evidence of a crime under Article 253 para 1 of the Criminal Code (money laundering) in respect of the immovable property.
At the same time, prior to the termination of the criminal proceedings, the supervising prosecutors have separated the materials into a separate investigation for four offences, namely - money laundering regarding the capital increase of a Spanish trading company; money laundering for transfers between individuals with the initials R.R. and B.Y.; money laundering for the purchase of real estate in the Republic of Turkey and for an unprofitable transaction regarding the sale of shares of a trading company.