Schemes for draining the budget through 2 illegal public procurements of the “Road Infrastructure“ Agency and for the illegal seizure of motor vehicles from the person Yulian Lyubenov Yankov are being investigated under the competence of the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office.
The investigated procurements have the subject of activity “Maintenance and repair activities of the “Hemus“, “Trakia“, “Maritsa“ and “Struma“ with the numbers 00044-2023-0018 and 00044-2024-0047 respectively, worth 915,214,855.00 BGN excluding VAT and 1,098,257,826.00 BGN with tax paid.
For some unknown reason, they also contain illegal roadside assistance clauses. A senior official of the state prosecution explained that the pre-trial proceedings are at the SGP, instead of at the Sofia District Prosecutor's Office due to reasonable suspicions of the existence of an organized criminal group (OCG) between state officials and representatives of private business in the person of Yulian Lyubenov Yankov and the possible participation of persons with immunity.
The other reason for the crimes to be investigated by the SGP is that the damage to the budget is particularly large both from public procurement for road maintenance with roadside assistance clauses, and from the seizure of a total of 12 vehicles from a private company - 7 light trucks and 5 cars, by the company participating in the procurements “Unit Assist“ EOOD of Yulian Yankov.
Some of the vehicles stolen from the company “Promosale“ EOOD were found in a terrain used by Yulian Yankov. A private bailiff, however, failed to seize them in favor of their owner according to the court order due to inaction by employees of the Seventh Regional Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. According to the unofficial explanation of the source from the prosecutor's office, the passive observation of the scandal by employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the refusal to help the private bailiff fulfill his official duties is explained by a connection between Yulian Yankov and the former Secretary General of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Svetlozar Lazarov.
The businessman with a thick criminal record was a close friend of Lazarov, which will also be investigated. According to the ACF, the two problematic public procurements involve illegal reassignment of road maintenance activities, which divert at least 14 million leva per month, i.e., just over 7 million euros.
Since 2025, the Agency “Road Infrastructure” (API) has illegally reassigned the provision of 24-hour, free roadside assistance to the company “Unit Assist” EOOD. In turn, the company illegally reassigns the activity to at least 11 companies. According to the data, there are over 70 points at which there are two trucks ready to provide first aid - one for cars and one for trucks. For Bulgarian taxpayers, this means monthly costs of over 14 million leva (7,158,000 euros) or approximately 170 million leva (87 million euros) annually for the 24-hour duty alone.
For the first time, information about the “new free service“ appears publicly in a statement by the director of the RIA, Eng. Yordan Valchev, before the National Assembly in November 2025. When asked by a member of parliament, Eng. Valchev replied that the state has been providing the service since the summer of 2025.
“The documents refute Mr. Valchev's claims, as the service in question appears in all road maintenance contracts since 2014“, points out Sofia Jeleva, a legal expert at the ACF.
If similar amounts have been paid under the contracts since 2014, this potentially means that the state has paid nearly 1.1 billion leva (511 million euros) for the “free roadside assistance” service.