"The aggravation of the political situation, not only in Bulgaria, the impact on the economy and economic subjects, creates prerequisites for the aggravation of the political struggle inside the country. New political subjects appeared, and traditionally every political subject, gaining experience, understands that the Ministry of Finance, Agency "Customs" as part of it, are extremely important. "From the beginning of the transition, we see that customs are seen as a piggy bank by various entities," said the former head of CSBOP, Gen. Tihomir Stoychev.
In his words, transparency is needed in the cases of investigations in the institutions, and not for the public to have to guess what is happening inside them.
"DANCE I don't know why he is in such a hurry to carry out this operation at this very moment. Until recently, there were attacks against the chairman of DANS with the attempt to remove him, which turned out to be unsuccessful. Apparently, all offices and institutions are currently under the scrutiny of political parties and everyone is trying to gain positions because elections are coming," he commented to Bulgaria ON AIR.
According to unofficial information, the DANS operation in the "Customs" Agency has something to do with Nikolay Nikolov - Pascal. Stoychev explained part of the story of the smuggler.
"In 1998, NSBOP, after a long time the National Security Service and its local structures had collected information about smuggling channels, conducted a joint operation between NSS and NSBOP. Pascal is one of those detained, but a lot of cargo was detained, which turned out to be connected to political figures, Stoychev said.
The former head of the Central Service for Combating Organized Crime also commented on the idea of the merger of the NRA and the "Customs" Agency.
"It makes no sense. These are upheavals in the services. Their only goal is to make these offices and leadership positions grateful and subordinate to them so that what has been done for 30 years continues to be done. "None of them wants real change and no one wants a real fight against crime," Stoychev stressed.