Registering a new car with the traffic police can be a real test of nerves. The process is associated with waiting, queues, paying fees and other unpleasant experiences. But there is a way to avoid all this. There are two conditions - to be in a high-ranking state position and to know the chief of the police.
This is how you can register your car remotely - for example, while you are in Sofia, the entire procedure should be carried out in Razgrad, and the police chief should even pay the legally required fees.
This is reported by Mediapool.bg.
Such a scenario has played out with the new car of the member of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) Ognyan Damyanov, Mediapool has learned. On the day he participated in a meeting of the council, his brand new Audi Q7 was registered at the Razgrad Traffic Police Station. The fees were paid personally by the former chief of the Razgrad police, Deyan Simeonov.
According to copies of documents available to Mediapool, Damyanov bought a new car on January 21 last year. The car was imported from Hungary and cost the court personnel officer 170 thousand leva. Two days later, the registration procedure began in Razgrad. According to Mediapool's information, the car did not travel to Razgrad at all to be registered.
Instead, the registration application was printed there, and the employee was explained that it would be sent to Sofia for signature. The original document lacks the recipient's signature. There is also no signature from an employee of the Ministry of Interior who should have checked the vehicle. All other data has been entered.
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Such a practice is a violation of the regulations of the Ministry of Interior. A car can also be registered by a person other than the owner, but he must be notarized.
In this case, there is no such thing. Instead, a person with a name and surname identical to those of the chief of the Razgrad police paid the registration fees for the car. The bill was 61.40 leva, - 35 leva for the registration itself and 26.40 for the plates. All this took exactly one minute.
The documents were apparently printed one after the other and the procedure was completed. A check by Mediapool showed that a "Civil Liability" insurance was taken out for a car with the same number the day before the registration – on January 22.
A check of the latest property declaration shows that Damyanov has over 335,000 leva in two bank accounts, and the salary at the Supreme Judicial Council is really good – 195,000 leva per year (16,300 leva/month) two years ago.
The car does not appear in the declaration for last year, but this is normal, since this document reflects the property acquired in 2024. At the moment, the declarations for 2026 have not been uploaded to the website of the National Audit Office.
Mediapool tried to contact Damyanov to explain the situation. First, we sent questions to the press center of the Supreme Judicial Council. There was no response. We also tried with an application under the Access to Public Information Act. We were told that the information sought was not public. We also sent an official inquiry to the Ministry of Interior. They forwarded it to... former director Simeonov in Razgrad. Who also replied that this was not public information.
However, after several attempts, we managed to receive official confirmation that events unfolded in this way – Simeonov not only personally paid Damyanov's fees, but even ordered the registration of all other cars to be suspended until the jeep's insurance came into effect.
Because a car cannot be registered without valid insurance, and at the time the registration application was printed, Damyanov's insurance was not yet in effect. So mere mortals waited for the court personnel officer to process the documents.
Shortly before his car was registered in Razgrad, Damyanov participated in a meeting of the Supreme Judicial Council. The day fell on Thursday, when the plenum, i.e. the general meeting of judges and prosecutors, convenes. The meeting opened at 9:40 a.m., according to the minutes uploaded to the council's website.
Damyanov actively participated and took a position on the most pressing issue – termination of the procedure for the election of a prosecutor general. In fact, he is the person who proposed the dispositive part of the decision, which was later adopted by the council. It was then that the council terminated the procedure for the election of the only candidate - Borislav Sarafov. At that time, he was acting prosecutor general with the ambition of being elected for a regular seven-year term. However, at the last moment, the parliament adopted amendments that prohibited the Supreme Judicial Council with an expired term from electing a prosecutor general. Thus, the procedure was defeated.
The meeting ended quickly - in just 30 minutes - and was closed at 10.10 a.m. And yet, there was not enough time left for Damyanov to reach Razgrad at 11.05 a.m., when the registration form for his new car was printed.
Damyanov's entire magistracy career was spent in Razgrad, as is clear from his business card on the SJC website. He began working in the local district prosecutor's office in 1997. Since 2005, he has been in the district prosecutor's office, and only a year later he became the head of this structure, a position he held until 2017. In the autumn of the same year, he was elected a member of the SJC from the prosecutor's quota.