site.btaCorpbank Owner's Wife Interviewed by Investigators

Corpbank Owner's Wife
Interviewed
by Investigators


Sofia, October 24 (BTA) - The wife of banker Tsvetan Vassilev,
Antoaneta Vassileva, was interviewed at the Sofia Investigation
Service for more than two hours on Friday. The couple are being
investigated for money laundering. Vassilev is majority owner of
the Corporate Commercial Bank (Corpbank), which has been
inoperable since it was declared illiquid in June and its
depositors found themselves unable to use their money.

The wife's lawyer Menko Menkov told the media that Vassileva has
not been formally charged. The interview was mainly about a
family property in Switzerland. According to Menkov, half of the
money with which the property was bought was from Vassilev's
personal savings and the other half was borrowed from a Swiss
bank.

Meanwhile, National Ombudsman Konstantin Penchev told Bulgarian
National Radio that, assuming that a recent audit report on
Corpbank is credible, the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) should
immediately revoke the lender's licence.

Penchev said: "Corpbank was allowed to buy Victoria Bank, which
supposedly meant that the bank had been audited very thoroughly.
But soon after that it was placed under special supervision.
Then, the original reports by the conservators sounded quite
promising, but now, after BNB was silent for four months, it
turns out that it is a black hole, not a bank."

The Credit Institutions Act prescribes that if a bank has been
failing for five days to repay its liabilities because of
liquidity issues, it should be delicensed by BNB if the latter
deems that the issues will not be solved any time soon, Penchev
said.

"I personally distrust everything happening to Corpbank. I have
no faith as a citizen, because they have told so many lies and
we have been receiving so much contradictory information over
the last four months - to say nothing of the years when the bank
was growing and growing and growing and increasing its capital
threefold and fourfold under the protection of politicians," the
Ombudsman said.

He recalled that no one has been sentenced for the terrible
financial crisis of 1996-1997.

Penchev pointed to a problem with deposits carrying special
interest rates. Such deposits are not guaranteed even if they
are below the 100,000 euro mark, which is expressly stated in
the Bank Deposit Guarantee Act, he said. The Ombudsman fears an
avalanche of lawsuits by businesses and individuals in
connection with Corpbank's plight. PK/VE