41 fictitious appointments in the Smolyan Theater. The appropriated money is BGN 580,000

District Prosecutor's Office – Plovdiv and the Ministry of Internal Affairs gave a briefing in connection with pre-trial proceedings for official appropriation of money owned by state enterprises – theaters. Galin Gavrailov, deputy district prosecutor of the city of Plovdiv and representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, participate in it, BNT reports.
"The District Prosecutor's Office is monitoring pre-trial proceedings related to the illegal spending of funds from the state budget, namely funds from the budget of the Ministry of Culture through the budget of the theaters in Razgrad and Smolyan. At the moment, five persons have been brought to criminal responsibility. The four you were informed about earlier. Today, charges were brought against the director of the theater in Smolyan - Rumen Bechev. His charge is similar to that of the director of the theater in Razgrad - it refers to complicit embezzlement on a particularly large scale, representing a particularly serious case, the punishment is imprisonment from ten to twenty years," said Galin Gavrailov, supervising prosecutor in the case for the theaters.
According to the prosecutor, the accused director of the Smolyan Theater is currently giving explanations to the police and is fully cooperating with the investigation. However, due to his age and health, a measure of restraint was imposed on him - a monetary guarantee in the amount of BGN 15,000.
"So far we have identified a little more than 80 persons who are being appointed on fictitious contracts, conditionally speaking. The accusation against Smolyan refers to 41 persons. The amount subject to appropriation for Smolyan is BGN 580,000. As an accomplice of the accused director, in the capacity of a helper, we have referred to Piskov. Searches and seizures were carried out, about BGN 180,000 were seized. Some of the persons handed over about BGN 82,000 to the investigators. Some of the accused persons are cooperating in the course of the investigation," added the supervising prosecutor.