„Nikolai Nikolov-Pascal was a very significant figure for a long time, one could say in the early 90s. An attempt to trace him revealed that his police records were blank. As a name that is important mainly in illegal cigarettes, it was sometime until 2015.“ Tihomir Bezlov from the Center for the Study of Democracy said this on bTV.
„A big surprise is what happens and the appearance of his name. So far, what has emerged are unofficial reports. We don't have a press conference of DANS or KPCONPI“, added Bezlov.
Nikolai Nikolov-Paskal was detained for 72 hours together with three others, including the head of the “Customs” Agency. Petya Bankova, and accused of participating in an organized criminal group. The group engaged in influence peddling, bribery and smuggling from January 2023 until yesterday. The arrests took place after the action of DANS and KPCONPI in the “Customs Agency”.
In the words of Tihomir Bezlov, the resigned Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov should request data from DANS to find out what it is about.
„Bulgaria has been seizing cocaine since 1996. We have found 170 kg – yes, a large amount, but in Europe 300 tons are caught a year. This plot with customs became very pre-election, he added
After the action, the head of the “Customs Agency” Petya Bankova commented that some time ago she had a bad relationship with the head of DANS and suspects that he is behind the action.
„Usually what happened in the prosecutor's office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the special services, when you want to get rid of a person, you create official problems for him. There are also persistent people who move them from one room to another, but it seems that this is not just a practice there, Tihomir Bezlov also said.
He also commented on the revelations of the German edition “Spiegel“ about an alleged weapons cache of “Hamas” in our country. According to him, Palestinian refugees are probably behind this.