site.btaFive Customs Officers Charged with Running Bribery Ring

Five Customs Officers Charged with Running Bribery Ring

Sofia, January 14 (BTA) - Five customs officers from Port Varna have been held in custody for 72 hours and charged with participating in a bribery ring. This emerged at a news conference of the specialized prosecution on Saturday.

Among the detainees are the chief of the Varna West customs office and four shift supervisors.

Twenty-five customs officers and freight forwarders were arrested late on Friday evening at Port Varna West. During the arrest 711,000 leva were found on them.

Special surveillance means were used during the investigation and tapped conversations implicated the customs officers.

From the tapes it had become evident that freight forwarders collected money for the customs officers in order to process the documents promptly, according to Ivan Geshev, chief of the specialized prosecution. He specified that otherwise charges are collected when containers are delayed at the port.

Ivailo Spiridonov, head of the anti-organized crime unit, said that the detainees were extremely arrogant, which showed that they had been doing this for a long time.