Three officials of the state agency were taken into custody for illegally granting the Bulgarian citizenship and issuing passports to foreigners.
Ivan Geshev, the chief prosecutor of Bulgaria, was the first to share this information. “The money was paid in cryptocurrency, and we can prove it,” he stated. In response, the defense of those arrested claims that there is no evidence from the law enforcement agencies.
Dimitar Vladimirov, the deputy head of the agency, who said that he knew about the entire corruption scheme but did not give a signal, is the main witness in the case. The defendants took about 5000 euros for one passport. They are charged with corruption, forgery of documents, the organization of a criminal group, and abuse of official position. The group has operated since July 2017.
The lawyers of the accused officials have expressed a thorough denial of the officials’ involvement in receiving illegal payments in digital assets. However, the Prosecutor General’s Office is insistent that they have been able to amass sufficient evidence to show that the suspected officials were indeed guilty of receiving unauthorized payments in Bitcoin.
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