Author: Emilia Milcheva
In Bulgaria, the strongest accusations are not those that enter the courtroom, but those that remain without a final answer from the institutions - a recording of a telephone conversation, chat correspondence or international sanctions.
That's why every new revelation about the six-year-old plot between gambling boss Vasil Bozhkov and politician Boyko Borisov reopens it.
This time, the occasion is an official document from the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Department of the Treasury (OFAC), published by ΒΙRD. These are not new sanctions, but OFAC's official response to the case filed by Vasil Bozhkov against the US administration with a request to be removed from the list under the "Magnitsky" Act. It is in this document that OFAC's position on the facts on the basis of which he was sanctioned in 2021 is set out.
Even when sanctioning Bozhkov in June 2021, OFAC reported that he had bribed government officials and a "current political leader", without specifying his name. In the court document dated July 31, 2026, the service names Boyko Borisov for the first time.
In 2023, Goranov was also among those sanctioned under the "Magnitsky" law, because, according to ΟFAC, he used his position to "facilitate the bribery of Bulgarian state officials and deprive the Bulgarian state of tax revenues (from gambling, b.a.) in favor of Bulgarian oligarchs".
A story with an open end
This is an open end story - about the war between two former allies, which turned into one of the biggest political scandals. After leaving Bulgaria in 2020 to avoid arrest, Bozhkov published chats and SMS messages that he claimed were exchanged with Vladislav Goranov as Minister of Finance in Borisov's third cabinet. The former gambling boss accused the then prime minister of being the head of a political umbrella scheme for millions of leva.
In his reports, the businessman claimed that in the period 2017-2019 he had transferred around 60 million leva (30.68 million euros) through Goranov. The Bulgarian prosecutor's office ruled on them with a result that was not surprising. In 2023, the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office discontinued the investigation against Borisov, Goranov and Borisov's PR person - Sevdelina Arnaudova, accepting that no evidence of a crime had been collected.
The prosecutor's office assessed that the investigation had not established indisputably that Borisov, Goranov and Arnaudova had exercised coercion or blackmail against the businessman.
Three years later, however, the same allegations came to the fore again - this time as part of OFAC's official defense before a federal court in the US.
What's new
What is understood from the ΟFAC document? "OFAC found, and the plaintiff admitted, that he made payments to former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and former Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov in exchange for them providing preferential treatment to his business interests. This undoubtedly corresponds to the legal definition and generally accepted understanding of bribery."
The new thing here is not that Bozhkov again claims that he gave money to Borisov and Goranov, which he stated publicly back in 2020. What is new is that the US administration has already formulated these allegations as part of its official legal defense, referring to both his confessions and the information collected in the case.
The businessman's main thesis is that he did not voluntarily participate in a corruption scheme, but was forced to pay the then-ruling authorities under pressure and blackmail.
In the lawsuit, OFAC defends the grounds on which the sanctions were imposed. That is why, in its official response, the service names the alleged recipients of the money for the first time. Naming their names turns the document into news.
What will be the consequences
The GERB leader described the news as "an absolute lie". "I have sworn on my grandchildren everything I have said on this topic, and I have said it in all the places where it needs to be said", commented Borisov from Primorsko. Bozhkov himself has repeatedly said that he has documents for his words, but only an SMS communication between him and Goranov is publicly known.
Of those involved in the story of missing 560 million leva (286 million euros) in tax revenues from gambling, Bozhkov himself has suffered the most so far. The so-called "Gambling case" against the businessman began at the end of 2024. The rhytons and other artifacts from his famous collection were seized and are in state storage to this day.
The rest are in politics. Borisov is a party leader and MP, Vladislav Goranov is also an MP and is gradually restoring his reputation.
Maria Filipova, identified in the SMS communication as the "girl" who received valuable instructions to help Bozhkov, continued her march to leadership positions in the institutions. After the DKH, she also received the post of Deputy Chairman of the Financial Supervision Commission - a good career for a 33-year-old. Then she headed the Consumer Protection Commission, and is now Deputy Ombudsman. Her latest position includes her on the list of potential candidates for acting prime minister.
Filipova is a key witness in one of the cases against Bozhkov. She claims that in 2019 he tried to rape her in his office after she refused a bribe of 10,000 leva per day. According to him, she asked him for this amount.
The OFAC document does not change the judicial picture in Bulgaria, but it has the potential to change the political one, because the case can no longer be ignored.
For Borisov, the problem is that the scandal refuses to remain in the past. The topic returns not because of new allegations by Bozhkov, but because the US administration has included them in its official defense before a federal court.
The prosecutor's office can close the case, but it cannot end the political scandal.