site.btaUPDATED PM: Criticism of Head of National Customs Agency Seems Odd Considering Record Number of Drug Seizures

Аnswering questions on current topics from journalists and citizens on Facebook on Thursday morning, outgoing Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said that since Petya Bankova has been appointed Customs Agency Director, record-setting amounts of drugs had been seized. His comment came in relation to the operation of the State Agency for National Security (SANS) in Sofia and other towns that has led to Bankova’s arrest on Wednesday.

“I find it odd that it was Bankova who was accused of concealing drug channels,” Denkov said.

“It is very important to find out what is going on so that it does not turn out that she [Bankova] is being attacked precisely because she is doing her job and seizing drugs, the outgoing Prime Minister added. 

Nikolay Denkov said that he had requested information on the operation but so far, he had not received any from SANS.

“The fact is that large quantities of drugs worth millions of dollars or euros have been seized. It is also known that no charges have been filed so far,“ Denkov noted.

"Rumours have been doing the rounds for quite some time, one can see in the media, that SANS is covering up drug channels. Ms. Bankova used to be a SANS employee. I would not be surprised if [she] has information that she could actually use when becoming head of the Customs [Agency]. That is what the services should be doing - checking these alerts and saying whether they are true or not. I have said many times that SANS has a blind spot for corruption. They [SANS] always justify it by saying it is the job of the Anti-Corruption Commission. Let us now see how the two agencies, SANS and the Anti-Corruption Commission, will prove that they are doing their job for the benefit of the public," Denkov said.

The outgoing PM stressed he did not know Bankova personally and that he had never spoken to her. "If she has come to a meeting at the Council of Ministers, that is the only chance I have had to see her in person."

Denkov pointed out that Bankova had an impeccable reputation up to that point.