Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev is leaving for an official visit to the US next week. His visit is at the personal invitation of the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and within the framework of the trip the Minister will participate in a prestigious international forum. The focus of the Bulgarian society, however, is directed at the key bilateral meetings that will be held overseas.
The main emphasis in Demerdzhiev's talks will be the meetings with representatives of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The main topic will be countering the mechanisms through which Bulgarian citizens sanctioned under the global law "Magnitsky" manage to circumvent the international sanctions imposed on them restrictions.
According to the Minister of the Interior, the Ministry of the Interior has accumulated serious data and evidence on individuals and legal entities in our country who help sanctioned figures maintain their hidden majority control over various commercial companies, assets and financial flows.
„The big question is where the funds come from outside the 'Magnitsky' sanctions and how a person without legally established income allows himself payments of millions. If someone else pays instead of him, our American partners should know on what grounds this is happening“, Demerdzhiev commented to the media before his departure.
The Bulgarian authorities have already officially expressed their readiness to provide OFAC with complete schemes of related persons and corporate networks used to circumvent the restrictions. According to Justice Minister Nikolay Naydenov, this visit may finally open an effective channel for a real exchange of operational information between the American and Bulgarian services, since until now the lack of trust in the local judiciary system has blocked such cooperation.
Ivan Demerdzhiev's visit to the US comes amid sharp political sparks in Sofia. Just a day earlier, the Ministry of Interior announced that it was ready to send to the National Assembly a full list of individuals who flew with Delyan Peevski on private and scheduled flights in recent years - a move that the Interior Minister said would shed light on the unhealthy connections between business, politics and the allocation of public procurement in Bulgaria.