site.btaProsecution Office to Conduct Check Based on Turkey's KOM Anti-Smuggling Report

Sofia, December 21 (BTA) - The Prosecution Office is launching a check based on the latest annual anti-smuggling and organized crime report of the Turkish Ministry of Interior's Department of Anti-Smuggling and Organized Crime (KOM), Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov said at a briefing at the Interior Ministry on Thursday. He received a copy of the report from Interior Minister Valentin Radev, who had acquired it from INTERPOL.

In mid-November it transpired that KOM's anti-smuggling and organized crime report for 2017 mentions Bulgaria's Bulgartabac company as one of the sources of contraband cigarettes in Turkey.

In Tsatsarov's words, data on the smuggling of tobacco products will be requested from all relevant services in Bulgaria, as well as information from the Customs Agency on the country's entire export of tobacco products so that these data can be compared to Bulgartabac's production.

The prosecuting magistracy will also request through the Interior Ministry information from INTERPOL about the identity of the report's author, the purpose of the report and what the data in it have been used for. "There are pages without a title and author, and there is no indication of the service that has created it [the report]," Tsatsarov said.

At the briefing, the Prosecutor General also said that because of the high number of traffic accidents and road traffic victims, a national check begins into the activity of the Interior Ministry and the Regional Development and Public Works Ministry about the state of all pedestrian crossings and whether these meet the legal requirements. Letters with recommendations will be sent to the mayors of those settlements where irregularities are established, and sanctions will be imposed when the recommendations are not observed, Tsatsarov explained.

Interior Minister Radev quoted data, according to which 4,038 heavy traffic accidents have occurred in Bulgarian settlements since the start of 2017, leading to the death of 179 persons. Accidents outside of settlements totalled 2,269 but caused the death of over 400 persons, he said.