Back to BalkanInsight About Premium Subscription Advertise Newsletters Contact Sign in Follow us

Search

●Countries ●Albania ●Bosnia and Herzegovina ●Bulgaria ●Croatia ●Greece ●Kosovo ●Moldova ●Montenegro ●North Macedonia ●Romania ●Serbia ●Turkey ●In Focus ●Balkan Transitional Justice ●Reporting Democracy ●Focus on Ukraine ●Focus on Gender Justice ●Balkan Migrant Route ●Balkan Media Watch ●Digital Rights ●Bulgaria-North Macedonia dispute ●Russia in the Balkans ●Turkey and the Balkans ●China in the Balkans ●Focus on Far Right ●Paper Trail ●Environment ●Serbia-Kosovo Relations ●News ●Premium ●All ●Opinions ●Analysis ●Investigations ●Profiles ●Features ●Interviews ●Subscribe ●Newsletters ●Sign in News

Bulgarian Border Police Chiefs Quit in Migrant Scandal

Mariya Cheresheva Sophia BIRN August 16, 201614:05 Two top border police officials have resigned after а suspected people-smuggler won a public tender to transport migrants to accommodation centres inside the country.

Photo: Facebook/Boyko Borissov

The director of the police border guards, Antonio Angelov, and his deputy Yotko Andreev stepped down on Monday after Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borissov demanded their resignations. Borissov’s call followed media reports that revealed that an entrepreneur charged with smuggling undocumented migrants to Bulgaria won a public tender from the interior ministry for transportation of migrants who have been arrested inside the country to accommodation centres. “This is shameful, I have nothing more to add,” Borissov told journalists on Monday, adding that the story “sounds like a joke”. The 34-year-old Grigor Toshkov, owner of the company Edelvais 0707, was arrested at the end of June while driving a bus containing 65 migrants, none of whom had any documents, near Bulgaria’s border with Turkey. He was charged with migrant smuggling and released under house arrest. Toshkov even signed a deal with the prosecution, accepting the accusations, but withdrew from the agreement later. While he was under house arrest, he transferred the transport company, which won the public tender on August 8, to his 56-year-old father. It also turned out that the hired bus he used while allegedly trying to smuggle migrants through Bulgaria was the same one that police intended to use to transport the migrants to the accommodation centres. The case has provoked public mockery and outrage, as the Bulgarian interior ministry has often been accused of corruption and other malpractices. At the end of July, the state’s special prosecution charged four police officers with involvement in an organised crime ring dealing with people-smuggling. The Bulgarian interior ministry has appointed Svetlan Kachikov as the new chief of the border guards. Kachikov has over 20 years’ experience with the border and coastguards, according to the interior ministry. He was a commander of the Bulgarian ship Obzor, which rescued 900 migrants near the Greek island of Lesbos in February as a part of the Frontex naval mission Poseidon. Meanwhile on Tuesday, Bulgarian National Radio reported that 100 Frontex officers will join Bulgarian guards at the country’s borders with Turkey and Serbia. The majority of the EU officers – 85 of them – will participate in border patrols, while the other 15 will work at border checkpoints. ●Balkan Migrant Route ●Bulgaria

BIRN

VIEW ALL POSTS

Latest premium

July 4, 2024 Opinion

Croatia Must Stop Downplaying the Genocidal Crimes of the Ustasa

July 3, 2024 Investigation

‘Undressed’ by AI: Serbian Women Defenceless Against Deepfake Porn

July 3, 2024 Analysis

Thumbs-Down from Brussels for Croatia’s Judiciary Comes as No Surprise

July 2, 2024 Interview

Romania Will Benefit from Sending Missiles to Ukraine, Expert Says

July 2, 2024 Investigation

In Serbia, Ruling Party MP's Property Dream Comes True

Subscribe to Premium Content

Most popular

June 28, 2024 Opinion

A Violent Desire for Justice: Gavrilo Princip’s Motives for the Sarajevo Assassination

June 27, 2024 Analysis

From Tech Boom To Housing Crisis: The Growing Pains of Romania’s Cluj

July 1, 2024 News

Ismail Kadare, Greatest Albanian Writer, Dies at 88

June 28, 2024 News

Albania's Census Shows Population Fell by 14% Since 2011

June 28, 2024 Investigation

Frontex Officers Failing to Report Migrant Abuses on Albania-Greece Border

About us The Team Letters to the Editor Newsletters BIRN Consultancy

Subscribe to Premium Awards Institutions and Partners Contact us RSS Feeds

Published by BIRN Manage your privacy To provide the best experiences, we and our partners use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us and our partners to process personal data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site and show (non-) personalized ads. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions. Click below to consent to the above or make granular choices. Your choices will be applied to this site only. You can change your settings at any time, including withdrawing your consent, by using the toggles on the Cookie Policy, or by clicking on the manage consent button at the bottom of the screen.

Functional Always active

The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.

Preferences

The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.

Statistics

The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.

Marketing

The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes. Statistics Marketing Features Always active Always active Read more about these purposes {title} {title}