Cases of illegal wiretapping in the state administration are not isolated, but happen much more often than is publicly known. This was stated on NOVA NEWS by the former deputy rector of the Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Assoc. Prof. Milen Ivanov, commenting on the discovered wiretapping devices in the municipal administration of Gorna Oryahovitsa.
According to him, the case is not unprecedented, as similar devices have been discovered before.“Based on public information, this is not a precedent. The same things have been discovered before. In general, the phenomenon of “wiretapping“ is quite widespread in the state administration, but rarely gains the necessary publicity“, said Ivanov.
According to him, there is currently not enough information about who installed the devices and for what purpose, and this is the task of the investigation. However, he expressed doubt that the case will reach court. “My opinion is that this investigation will not lead to an indictment. There is a serious legal problem in the Criminal Code - there is no legal definition of what constitutes a special technical means for covert information collection, which makes it difficult to prove such a crime“, explained the expert.
According to him, modern technologies make such devices cheap, compact and easy to hide. “There is a huge amount of devices on the market that can be disguised as watches, speakers, sockets or simply glued under a desk. They are very difficult to detect and record for hours“, Ivanov pointed out.
He added that such practices are often used both between employees and between managers and subordinates in the administration. “This is very common in both directions - civil servants collect information to protect themselves, and managers sometimes try to collect information for their subordinates“, he added.
According to the expert, even the expertise cannot always establish who installed the device. “The SIM card can be used to reach the owner, but prepaid cards or proxy persons are usually used. The technical expertise can answer some of the questions, but not who, when and why installed the device“, Ivanov explained.
He also linked the case to the tension in the relevant administration. “Probably there are clan wars going on there. When there is internal administrative tension, each of the groups strives to gain information superiority and it is then that such actions escalate“, he commented.
Assoc. Prof. Ivanov also commented on the investigation of the arson in Bankya, after Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev earlier announced that there were already suspects. “The investigation so far only shows that we are being told almost nothing. Society has fragmentary facts and this is a prerequisite for numerous speculations“, he stated.
The expert believes that the presence of several fire sources indicates a deliberate act.“It is obvious that the arson was deliberate, because a house cannot catch fire in several places at the same time. Whether this is a pre-planned cover-up of a crime or a panicked attempt to destroy traces, we can only speculate for now," Ivanov said.
He noted that the fire seriously hampered the work of investigators. "High temperatures mostly destroy DNA traces. That is why arson is often used to destroy evidence after a crime has been committed," the expert explained.