site.btaGroup of IT Geeks Has Located Fugitive Power-broker in Bulgarian Judiciary, MP Says

A group of IT geeks have been able to locate Petar "the Euro" Petrov, a fugitive power broker in the judiciary, MP Ivaylo Mirchev of Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) told journalists in Parliament Friday.

A former head of the Sofia investigative service, Petrov is being tried for extortion and for using forged documents to steal hundreds of thousands in cash and gold bars from a businessman. His role as a major “fixer” in the judiciary transpired in investigations by the Anti-Corruption Fund. He vanished in 2023 the day it transpired that the law-enforcers were after him and has been missing ever since. In 2023, he was put on the Interpol wanted list.

Mirchev said that the group of IT geeks, calling themselves "The Bulgarian Elves," had located Petrov through his electronic devices using public data. "They know his location, they know he is between Bulgaria and Greece, they know what phone he is using. The big question is why the authorities do not know this," Mirchev said.

He emphasized that the parliamentary group of CC-DB would request a hearing with the competent authorities on the matter next week. "So that they can explain what has been done regarding one of the biggest scandals in our judicial system and the unauthorized influence within it," said Mirchev.

In a related development Thursday, the Boec anti-corruption movement and the Bureau for Investigative Reporting and Data (BIRD.bg) made public a hefty volume of documents from the period 2014–2020, allegedly belonging to Petrov. Boec and BIRD called these "Petrov's archive". They said that the documents fall into several categories: signed and unsigned prosecutorial decrees, as well as tipoffs to the institutions; material evidence obtained through the use of specialized surveillance methods; documents from the Interior Ministry and the State Agency for National Security; documents related to the failed Corporate Commercial Bank; requests for assistance from businessmen and officials to Petyo Petrov, as well as personal documents.