The suspected number one smuggler - Nikola Nikolov - Pascal will be declared a national wanted man. The charge against him was brought in absentia, BNT reported. According to unofficial information, Nikolov is most likely in Northern Greece, where he has been living for years. According to investigators, the role of father and son Marin and Stefan Dimitrovi was that of mediators between Pascal and customs chiefs.
Tomorrow, the prosecutor's office will request the determination of a permanent measure of "detention in custody" for the head of the "Customs" Agency Petya Bankova, as well as for Marin and Stefan Dimitrovi. Minutes ago, the Sofia City Court approved all 30 protocols from the searches in the "Customs" Agency. and in the homes of customs chiefs, current and former customs officers.
In underground circles, Nikola Nikolov - Pascal is called the "king of cigarettes". It is said to hold the largest channel for the trafficking of tobacco products. There are data that the amount of cigarettes passed through this channel in the last 3 years has increased several times.
"Smuggled cigarettes in Bulgaria are currently at a very low level, negligible, about 3%. It is very possible that something we are missing is that these smuggled cigarettes were transiting through Bulgaria. But for me, this is the exploitation of a mythological figure from the past in order to make some kind of visual scheme to convince the public that there is something else behind these arrests," said Iovo Nikolov, an investigative journalist.
The so-called Pascal is from Dimitrovgrad. Back in the 80s of the last century, he started working as a customs officer in Svilengrad, but his workplace was the "Captain Andreevo" border crossing. There are claims that he then became an associate of "State Security" and has mastered the ins and outs of state-controlled smuggling. In 1995, he left customs and then began his development in the smuggling business, first as a partner of Ivan Todorov - Doctor.
"I wrote about this man in 1998 - 25 years ago. "His name appeared 10 years ago again as the leader of a channel for the trafficking of contraband cigarettes," comments Yovo Nikolov.
They say that Nikola Nikolov learned something else from his old services - how not to attract attention, and this distinguished him from Ivan Todorov - the Doctor, with whom they had parted ways in business back in 2001. He preferred to play more modestly, but sure.
"Smuggling is a market. Someone is trying to displace another, someone is trying to adjust. It is a question of political connections, of police umbrellas, so that some channels can be mastered. The strength of Ivan Todorov - Doctor was precisely in the transit smuggling of cigarettes abroad. He transited more by airplanes, by cargo, etc. I think Pascal was a more local player," said Yovo Nikolov.
In order not to attract attention, for the last more than 15 years Nikola Nikolov - Pascal has been living near Kavala in Greece. It is even claimed that he lived for a long time in a lorry converted into a caravan on the coast of the White Sea. In 2021, however, he returned to our country and even registered his only company in Bulgaria "H-6" Ltd., but with an impressive capital of 100 thousand BGN for the native practice. For the company's office, he rented an entire floor of a large metropolitan hotel next to Borisova Garden. At the beginning of this year, however, he unexpectedly closed the office and left the country again.