Comment by Emilia Milcheva:
If Hristo Kovachki, who claims to be a consultant, not the owner of a business empire, were a Marvel hero, he would be called Μr. Blackout*. The empire of nearly 150 companies with a total turnover of over 5 billion leva, owns coal mines, district heating plants, thermal power plants - the most significant of which are the “Brikel” and the “Bobov Dol” thermal power plants, gas traders, but also resorts, pension funds and other assets. Its ultimate owner, however, is… shadow.
Machinations stamped with images of cartoon characters
For more than a decade, journalists have been writing about each of these assets as being “connected with Kovachki”. This time, however, the machinations of “Uncle Trevichko” (after the name of the email address from which the Boss's orders came, stamped with images of cartoon characters) have come to light. The Anti-Corruption Fund (ACF) revealed them in an investigation into the informal holding “Orion”, and new documents were also shown by BG-Elves - an online community of experts in cybersecurity and the fight against disinformation, which has gained access to about 20,000 emails related to chichkotrevichko112@gmail.com. So far, a contract for the purchase of 200 million cubic meters has emerged from the e-mail correspondence. meters of natural gas from “Gazprom”, whose buyer is “TIBIEL” - a company for which counterintelligence had data that “is informally managed by Hristo Kovachki”.
If we believe Kovachki's explanations and the denials of “Orion” companies, all this is slander. It was not true that everything happens through offshores in the Bahamas and Seychelles through proxy persons and related companies that manipulate the market. It was not true that the price of heat energy for end users in 12 cities is kept artificially high, since the thermal power plants buy the raw materials and services for their activities from related suppliers at inflated prices, and then sell the electricity to related traders at reduced prices. There was no fictitious use of biomass in the TPP in order to save greenhouse emissions and payments for them.
The state as a "shadow" for Kovachki
“I have no offshore companies”, said Hristo Kovachki on bTV, about whom information emerged 14 years ago that he had transferred mines, district heating systems, TPPs, including “Brikel”, to companies in the Seychelles and other offshore jurisdictions due to tax and judicial problems. He privatized his largest assets, including “Atomenergoremont” - for repairs at the “Kozloduy” NPP, under the rule of NMSV-DPS and the “triple coalition”, today Kovachki is a shadow for his empire.
The state is a shadow for Kovachki. A very thick shadow. That is why no institution - the financial intelligence, the National Revenue Agency, the prosecutor's office, the Commission for the Protection of Competition (CPC), the Financial Supervision Commission (FSC), refutes his claims. But what one of his former managers, Veselin Todorov, and others, who preferred anonymity, tell ACF, can no longer be silenced.
A wide-open political umbrella
Which is the greater evil - the “shadow” of the oligarch or the state, allowing the “shadow” to drain companies he controls in order to hide profits, taxes and social security contributions? “Such a sleazy approach in the energy sector cannot survive without political support”, says ACF journalist Nikolay Staykov, who also investigated the “Eight Dwarfs” justice-trading affair.
The political umbrella for Kovachki's business has not been retracted or hidden. It was held by the MRF when Ahmed Dogan was the sole owner of the party, as well as energy circles around President Georgi Parvanov (2002-2012), GERB also helped, and now it seems that it is in the hands of the “phenomenon” and fellow oligarch Peevski. The mayor of the Galabovo municipality for the sixth term, Nikolay Tonev, where the smoke-spewing Brickel TPP is located, was from the DPS and switched to the DPS-New Beginning. In 2019, the website For the Truth revealed that the power plant was preparing to conclude an agreement with the Galabovo municipality to burn 500,000 tons of waste per year at the TPP. Civil protests prevented it, but a year later the power plant was also involved in the scandal with the import and burning of Italian garbage. The mayor of the Bobov Dol municipality, where the Bobov Dol TPP is located, is also in Peevski's camp.
Both TPPs are among the major polluters. An analysis by “Greenpeace“-Bulgaria on the activities of TPP “Brickel“, TPP “Bobov Dol“ and TPP “Republika“ for the period 2018-2023 revealed that 198 fines were imposed on them, of which 108 were canceled and another 44 were reduced by the court. “Greenpeace” showed back in 2018 the circles of mines and TPPs whose ownership is hidden behind offshore companies. And in 2022 The organization published its report "The Eight Circles of Kovachki's Coal Empire", in which it outlined its contours: "middlemen draining "Toplofikatsia Sofia", a trader and verifier of greenhouse emissions, a pension fund for investments in district heating, an insurance company - "a favorite of the state", and a lobbying association for a "green future".
The unions also had their role
In addition to politicians and regulators, Kovachki was also supported by the unions, who defended his air-polluting thermal power plants and stopped the privatization of the "Bobov Dol" thermal power plant from the Greek PPC through protests, so that the oligarch could later receive it. In 2010 Serbian media reported that the services in Belgrade are investigating the business connections of one of the biggest drug lords in the Balkans, Sreten Josic, with businessmen who participated in privatization in Serbia, including Kovachki.
Even earlier, in 2003, the Austrian publication “Format” linked the origin of his money to the drug trafficker Konstantin Dimitrov-Samokovec, who was killed in Amsterdam. In an interview for “Dnevnik” then, when asked: “How would you comment on information on “Info Radio” that an employee of the NSS (counterintelligence, b.a.) had concealed data about the connections of ”Bulgarian Energy Company” (owned by Kovachki, b.a.) with Konstantin Dimitrov?”, Kovachki replies: “I don't know and I haven't heard these things”.
Will the institutions move
So far, Bulgarian institutions have ignored the media revelations - the lack of a plausible story about the origin of someone's wealth has never worried them, nor have illegal financial practices and data on political corruption. Unless there is an order “from above”. It seems that they are preparing to do the same with the ACF investigation and the BG-Elves revelations.
However, the PP-DB is proposing the creation of a temporary parliamentary commission to investigate all the circumstances surrounding the networks described in the ACF investigation, including the inaction/cooperation of the institutions. Former manager Veselin Todorov claims that Kovachki received advance information about upcoming inspections, including from the European Public Prosecutor's Office, and ordered the destruction of documents. Todorov gives an example of a search of offices by European prosecutors in 2023 in connection with the inspection of carbon emissions due to suspicions of false data declared. “These colleagues of mine who were questioned, Kovachki then gave them his own statements to read”, says Todorov. There are no results from the investigation yet.
Kovachki's name is also known to the European Public Prosecutor's Office through the investigation into the expansion of the Chiren gas storage facility. Complaints from a company close to the energy boss blocked the strategic project, the aim of which is to double the capacity to 1.1 billion cubic meters. meters in the name of Bulgaria's energy diversification.
Peevski's action
Peevski is trying to cover up the scandal with Kovachki by filing a report against “Lukoil” with the CPC, which immediately began an investigation into a potential cartel. In this way, he diverts attention from “Uncle Trevichko” and the “Orion” holding. By the way, in 2019, the four nationally represented employer organizations referred the matter to the Antimonopoly Commission for “unmarket trade practices” of energy enterprises from Kovachki's empire. A year later, the CPC did not find any connections between the owners of the TPP “Bobov Dol”, ”Brikel” and the district heating plants in Sliven, Pernik, Vratsa, Burgas, etc., since they were different foreign individuals from the Seychelles or other islands and had no other assets in Bulgaria. It also found no coordinated behavior by two electricity traders, also from the Kovachki empire.
“It turns out that 11 power plants in our country are managed by one village in London”, said journalist Nikolay Staykov on bTV, who told how he went to the address, where he found only one guard. The Antimonopoly Commission could also have sent someone on a secondment - or received an email from chichkotrevichko, who wants to cut off the electricity.