Despite summarizes baseball tickets numerous pledges, nhl rockies informs Sofia has notconvicted a single senior official of graft and has sent to jailonly one crime boss since the end of communism in 1989. Suspected criminals have received temporary immunity fromprosecution after registering to run for parliament. The agriculture and environment ministries, both controlledby the MRF, and the construction and the economy ministries,controlled by the Socialists, have been allegedly involved insome of the most notorious schemes in the past few years. Here are the main scandals: JACUZZI AND INTIMIDATION Valentin Dimitrov, director of the state-owned heatingutility Toplofikatsia Sofia was sacked in June 2006 after anaudit showed he had misused over 15 million levs ($10.63million), installed massage chairs and a jacuzzi in his office,and claimed for a boat and a water scooter on expenses. He was later charged with money-laundering and tax evasionafter prosecutors said they had received a signal from anunidentified Austrian bank that he had a deposit of 1.6 millioneuros in it. The scandal led to the dismissal of then Economy and EnergyMinister Rumen Ovcharov in June 2007, after a seniorinvestigator accused the minister of trying to blackmail him andinfluence the probe into Toplofikatsia Ovcharov wasinvestigated but not charged.
The Sofia City Court sentenced Dimitrov to 14 years in jailon June 25 after he was found guilty of misusing more than $4.2million from the loss-making utility rockies blankets . ENVIRONMENT CARE OR BENEFITS Canadian mining company Dundee Precious Metals lodged acomplaint against Bulgaria at the European Commission in 2007for effectively blocking a planned $250 million investment inits gold operations in the country hockey rockies . For more than two years Environment Minister DzhevdetChakarov had refused to sign environment permits for two goldmines, and Dundee had argued that the heart of the matter lay inthe political interests of his ethnic Turkish MRF party todd helton . The government and Dundee settled in March 2008 after Dundeeagreed to pay a substantially higher fee to Bulgaria forexploring a gold mine, and allowed the state to take a stake ina planned gold and copper producing plant EU FARM AID SCHEME In Feb baseball . 2007, the police services of Bulgaria, Germany andSwitzerland exposed a criminal network accused of abusing fundsworth 7.5 million euros ($10.5 million) in EU pre-accession farmaid. The network consisted of over 50 Bulgarian and various otherEuropean and offshore firms and was allegedly run by twoBulgarians -- Lyudmil Stoikov and Mario Nikolov -- who were saidto have close links with the government, the EU anti-fraudagency OLAF said in a letter to Sofia last year.
"There are powerful forces in the Bulgarian government ...who are not interested in punishing anyone from the circlearound Lyudmil Stoikov-Mario Nikolov," the OLAF letter said rockys baseball . The group was allegedly involved in tax evasion, subsidyfrauds, forgery, money laundering and illegal imports toBulgaria, as well as exports to the EU before 2007 of Chineserabbit and chicken meat colorado rockies . Nikolov and Stoikov -- the latter donated 25,000 levs forthe election campaign of President Georgi Parvanov, a Socialist,in 2006 -- were arrested the colorado rocky mountains . Stoikov was later released after noevidence of his guilt was found colorado rockies mountain . Stoikov is under investigation for alleged money launderingin a related case, prosecutors have said. In July 2008 after pressure from Brussels, Nikolov, togetherwith eight other people, was charged with participating in acriminal group and document fraud.
A Sofia court temporarily suspended the trial in mid-June asone of the defendants, Ivan Ivanov, won temporary immunity afterregistering to run in the July national elections coors field seating chart . BROTHERS AND ROADS Veselin Georgiev, former head of the national road agency,resigned in February 2008 after media reports he had arrangedcontracts worth millions of levs for his brothers' constructionfirms He was later charged with conflict of interests colorado rockies fantasy camp . MEET THE CRIME BOSSES Former Interior Minister Rumen Petkov was forced to stepdown in April 2008 after two former high-ranking police officerswere arrested and accused by prosecutors of irregular phonetapping and passing sensitive information to crime bosses nhl rockies . Petkov, a senior member of the Socialist party, said then hewas "responsible for some appointments in the ministry throughwhich I misled the leadership of the country" hockey rockies . He later said hehad met accused crime bosses and former members of the policeanti-terrorism unit, Plamen Galev and Angel Hristov.
Business partners Galev and Hristov, charged with running anorganised crime group and racketeering, spent some six months incustody until mid-June when they were released after registeringto run in July elections, winning temporary immunity ian stewart autographed baseball . SYPHONING TAXES The former head of the State Revenue Agency, Maria Murgina,resigned in February after prosecutors said they wereinvestigating a sizeable fraud involving value added tax todd helton . No details were made available but local media quoted policesources as saying the damage to public finances was more than1.0 billion levs baseball . In May, Murgina was charged with abuse of power, puttingpressure on a subordinate and document fraud She denied anywrongdoing . LAND SWAPS In March, the national security agency and prosecutorsraided the agriculture ministry and seized documents in aninvestigation into large-scale illegal land deals. Prosecutorsare investigating swaps of thousands of hectares of state-ownedarable land and forests for private land that took place in 2008and 2009. Bulgaria has lost 8 billion levs in the past four years dueto swaps of high quality state-owned land for cheaper,fragmented private land, according to a report by ananti-corruption coalition of 30 non-government organisations.
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