The investigation "Uncle Grass" of the Anti-Corruption Fund (ACF), commented on the "Network" program "Hristo Botev" on BNT Nikolay Staykov, an investigative journalist from the ACF.
We live in some fairyland of dwarfs, rabbits, cartoon characters and grass that grows on mushrooms
"I sometimes have a problem explaining to my children that we are dealing with something serious, when it comes to dwarfs, for example. It's good that they are growing up and understanding more and more, but there is no big change in the institutions and in our hopes to see some result, because the institutional reaction is extremely meager. Any requests for a new time, a new policy, a new beginning, if you will, everything just continues as before."
The National Assembly refused to consider the ACF investigation and what followed from the fact that there was a commission for the "Eight Dwarfs"?
"I am one of the people who always defend the thesis of having a parliamentary commission. Because the silence is broken in grandiose corruption cases. We live in a country that bears absolutely all the signs of being conquered. And the reaction to these cases once again does not confirm it – the parliamentary commission is not some kind of panacea, nor an investigative body. But at least there it can be understood that this is abnormal behavior for a democratic and legal country. With a parliamentary commission, at least we can guarantee that the topic will not be forgotten for a few months, and the topic is very painful – energy."
GERB – abstained – Rosen Zhelyazkov appoints inspections
"But he did not say it of his own free will, but as a response to a parliamentary question. That is, this is not some kind of his initiative. The more interesting part of this statement is that he sees grounds for the prosecution to initiate proceedings."
Who is "Uncle Trevichko"?
"Over the years, there have been many investigations related to the business of the industrialist Kovachki, as some media outlets had called him. The industrialist Kovachki, who always turns out to be only a consultant to a group of enterprises in the energy sector, more precisely in its coal segment. So far, there has never been any concrete evidence of a connection, only the visible part. Now we have evidence of some obviously connected companies throughout the chain, as in a British village near London there are 11 people with interests in Bulgarian coal power.
This reminds me of a now-forgotten story about CorpBank, when all the rules for connected companies were formally observed and it turned out that the rules simply do not apply or no one wants to apply them. Nowhere in the rules for connected companies and in the descriptions of 20 points or more does it say that the secretary or the driver of the director or the owner cannot not be part and that this should be considered connected companies. And then people with a political umbrella and a regulatory umbrella actually use this and say – formally everything is fine in this case.
For the first time, thanks to access to internal documents and conversations with several people on the inside, we manage to peek inside and show documents and witnesses who can tell us how this miracle works and what the result of his activities is.
What did "Chichco Trevichko" actually do? We call him "Chichco Trevichko" because of an email: www.chichcotrevichko112.com.
It turns out that this is an email from which Kovachki or his secretaries send their commands throughout the chain – over 150 companies in Bulgaria and abroad. At its peak, there were nearly 20,000 workers, in total in the entire holding.
And everything is managed from one email www.chichcotrevichko112.com.
"Some documents with such childish stamps practically manage a serious segment in the Bulgarian energy sector and this is absolutely visible. That is, each of the documents sent through this email is stamped with the children's characters in question.
We are talking about a holding, a hidden cartel that imitates a market activity and a certain market environment, but in fact everything is managed from one place in personal interest, through unfair advantages and illegal practices. For example, in coal mines, workers' insurance is most regularly not paid. The total amount of the largest mine in the holding of "Chichco Trevichko" "Bobov Dol" is 250 million leva. The total amount of unpaid insurance premiums in the holding is 370 million leva. That is, everything is supposedly calculated, everything seems to be legal, and as the regulator KEVR says - everything is legal, but in fact it is literally being stolen with the full knowledge that it will never be paid.
Then the coal itself starts to be bought from related companies and delivered to the thermal power plants. The result is that the coal mines are constantly at a loss and cry that they cannot pay their insurance premiums. The state accepts this as true and reschedules them, because it is better for the mines to work anyway, and in the end everything goes to some traders, who are practically the strongest players in the whole scheme.
I will remind you that 6 years ago, Bulgarian employers' organizations notified the Commission for the Protection of Competition and requested an investigation of this group. The Commission for the Protection of Competition did not find any connection."
Why is the business being hidden
"This is a typical agreement that is punishable. In addition, we found that a case with an imposed act by the National Revenue Agency for the payment of VAT for 8 million leva for several million leva unpaid is being appealed. In the second instance, the opinion that these are related companies suddenly falls away. Companies are treated differently for tax purposes, whether you prove a connection or not, because then it is very easy to assume VAT fraud, and suddenly the court cancels the act, respectively the NRA is damaged by the 8 million leva in question.
This business model is downright criminal and some very enterprising and well-meaning people, apparently with political and regulatory protection, manage to make money in a very bureaucratized business, where regulations are slow and ineffective."
The citizens paid
"In the end, the citizens always pay. A kind of "Uncle Trevichko" through these related companies, he drained the companies that are his, all the way to Toplofikatsia "Sofia", since at one point there was a person directly connected to Kovachki's holding who managed it."
He drained his own companies himself
"A normal and always losing activity is imitated in order to claim a higher price, at the same time the related companies drain everything and in the end they reap the big profit, which is the sale on the free market. Exactly what the employers complained about years ago. In fact, a market environment is imitated, they are always at a loss and always want a higher price in order to at least make a minimum profit. These are companies, electricity traders, who only re-invoice what they buy from large producers, such as the Bobov Dol Thermal Power Plant, for example, and everything is managed by the email www.chichkotrevichko112.gmail.com."
The European Prosecutor's Office
"In 2022, an investigation by the European Prosecutor's Office began, which obviously has not yet ended, because we have no information that it has ended. At the beginning of 2023, there was public information that offices of companies related to Kovachki were being entered and documents were seized. What our witness said is that information leaked to them in advance about the actions of the European Prosecutor's Office. In fact, these are the Bulgarian institutions and the General Directorate for the Prevention of Corruption, which are mostly carrying out the orders of the European Prosecutor's Office to carry out searches in certain offices. The information leaked as early as Friday. They began destroying documents. And our witness says this with his face, how he personally destroyed documents."
European prosecutors are not allowed to enter alone. They use the help of Bulgarian institutions.
More about the ACF investigation and how transactions between related companies are treated differently, listen to the audio file and on the ACF website.