In this case, either there was close collaboration with the police, or they do not have enough information and Stuklarya always gets away. This is how the former deputy rector of the Ministry of Interior Academy, Assoc. Prof. Milen Ivanov, commented on the case of detained police officers and suspected drug dealers in a large-scale scheme in Sofia and Lovech in the studio of "Hello, Bulgaria" on "Nova TV". One of the arrested is Rosen Krastev - Stuklarya - alleged to be the leader of those detained for drug distribution.
We recall that seven people were brought as defendants for participation in an organized criminal group for arson, bribery, and drug distribution in Sofia and Lovech. Two of them are leaders of the group, one of whom is an employee of the Ministry of Interior. The group has been operating for about a year and a half. The operation to detain the accused was carried out on December 12 in both cities by the Directorate of the Bulgarian Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Internal Security Service. Large quantities of drugs were found - marijuana, synthetic drugs, cocaine, as well as tens of thousands of euros.
"Everything we are talking about is a hypothesis, there is a presumption of innocence for all those detained. Public speaking manipulates society, evidence is important. Probably everyone identified as involved in the case has already been detained, because otherwise there could be an impact on witnesses. When the market is redistributed, it will become clear who will take the place of the detainees. The fight against corruption is a systematic countermeasure, not flashy cases from time to time, so I think the case will collapse due to lack of evidence," added Assoc. Prof. Milen Ivanov.
For his part, Atanas Rusev from the Center for the Study of Democracy told who Rosen Krastev - the Glazier - is - alleged to be the leader of those detained for drug distribution. "The police have known him since at least 2007. He was the main witness in the case against the Gang of Hammers, it was said that he was the group's treasurer. Later, he testified against them. Later, he was part of another case - against Veso Payaka and Rado Laneca - they are drug distributors in the territory of Sofia. He cooperated with the police by providing information about competitors, which is probably why he is not in prison," commented Rusev.
One of the detainees is the head of the capital's Fifth Regional Police Department, Plamen Maximov, said the director of the Internal Affairs Directorate Lyubomir Nikolov. Among the detainees is an operational worker in the same regional department, as well as a policewoman with several years of experience. A proposal has been sent to the minister to remove all employees. Commissioner Iliya Kuzmanov will be the temporary head of the Fifth Regional Department.
In turn, criminalist Ivan Savov believes that every drug addict in Sofia knows who the drug users are. "If you take a closer look, you will also find out who is at the top of the distributors. I hope there are more arrests, this will mean that work is really being done against drug distribution. There have been, are and will continue to be corrupt police officers and their chiefs. It is very tempting, when you have a power resource on the side of the law and can manipulate it, to go down the slide. However, when there is data about a police chief who led a drug distribution group, we need to know that the information was received for months and was analyzed. I exclude improvisations in this case. Usually, they look for trusted individuals who are prone to corruption, so there were probably few people, if any, involved police officers," Savov said.
According to him, it is possible for leaders of drug gangs to wage war through the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but this also applies to political parties. "However, this is different from the specifics, the truth refers to the evidence collected. In this case, we are observing a synchronized operation in two cities against an organized crime group, rather in this specific case, "Internal Security" did their job. "There is almost no police chief in Sofia who is not said to have connections to crime, simply because there are many interested in discrediting him," Savov added.