The request of Evelyn Banev-Brendo, who surrendered voluntarily, to serve in Bulgaria the sentences handed down against him by Italy and Romania is due to the possible shortening of the term of his sentences.
This is what he said in front of "Focus" the expert on crime issues at the Center for the Study of Democracy Tihomir Bezlov.
On Monday, Brendo surrendered at the Central Sofia Prison around 07:30, carrying a bag with him and was ready to enter the cell.
According to the expert, there are numerous normative decisions in Bulgarian legislation that will give him the opportunity to sharply shorten his sentence. "In Bulgaria, the maximum term he should receive according to Bulgarian legislation is 15 years. Since he served part of his sentence under pretrial detention measures in 2007 and 2012-2014 respectively, those years should be credited to him. It is assumed that if he has a problem-free behavior and works in prison, the term is further reduced by half," explained the expert.
Brendo is perhaps the highest-ranking Bulgarian representative of the underground, impressed by even the Calabrian "Ndrangheta" according to the Italian journalist Roberto Saviano, who in his book "Nula Nula Nula“ says that "the Calabrians get their cocaine from the Bulgarians because the Bulgarian mafia bought such a quantity of cocaine that they were able to sell it at better prices than the South Americans themselves,” which is also confirmed by the Italian investigators, who claim that 1/3 of the cocaine in Spain and Italy was delivered through the network of Evelyn Banev's companies and carriers.
Called the "Cocaine King” because of his connections with the Colombian cartels, who at the beginning of the century entrusted him with large quantities of cocaine, he effectively organized the smuggling, initially through Spanish ports, and later to Italy. He also uses an interesting opportunity in Bulgaria: yacht captains are starting to participate in this cocaine transfer. "Then more or less begins the great growth of the cocaine market in Europe, which was 2-2.5 times smaller before.
The next stage is the laundering of the money from these transactions, and we know about this development through the money laundering process against "Credit Suisse" of the Swiss Prosecutor's Office,“ explained the expert, adding that the other thing that is impressive is Brendo's very effective avoidance of various investigations and repeated escapes from the authorities, which shows that there was a very high-level leak of information and support.
According to Tihomir Bezlov, the fact that despite being a poor, corrupt country with a very unstable political democracy, Bulgaria has not turned into Southern Italy with its abundance of traditional and not only criminal organizations is also interesting.