Prosecutors in Sofia have announced they will open an anti-corruption investigation into the European Prosecutor’s Office representative in Bulgaria.
The move came after reporters were sent an anonymous email which included a video clip the email said featured European Prosecutor’s Office Bulgarian representative Teodora Georgieva, Sofia-based media outlet Bulgarian Boulevard reported March 12.
In the video clip, the woman allegedly discussed the European Prosecutor’s Office with a lobbyist, whom the email claimed was Petyo Petrov, a former official at Bulgaria’s national police service wanted by authorities who has been missing for two years.
Petrov, who has also used the nickname “Euro”, fled into hiding in 2023 after being charged with allegedly concealing a large amount of gold from a businessman.
The “inspection has been assigned to the Commission for Combating Corruption”, the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office said in a March 11 statement.
The commission had instructions to “identify persons who could be involved in what is depicted in the video and to gather information from them”, the statement added.
The man in the video appeared “obviously” to be Petrov but expert voice analysis would be needed to conclude the woman in the video was Georgieva, Fakti, a Bulgarian news portal, said on March 11.
Bulgarian investigative journalist Nikolay Staykov, head of an organisation called the Anti-Corruption Fund, has suggested Georgieva’s office had likely managed to acquire Petrov’s secret archive, which he said included incriminating information on hundreds of Bulgarian magistrates.
Staykov’s anti-corruption organisation has alleged Petrov had created a large network using the documents to influence Bulgaria’s judges, police and security services.
“Give [Petrov] a bottle of whisky, he will finish it and come up with charges against anyone you point to,” the Anti-Corruption Fund quoted Delyan Peevski, a former official from Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security, as saying in August last year.
Peevski previously worked for Petrov at Bulgaria’s National Investigative Service, which probes organised crime and criminal cases with an international component.
The video and anonymous email possibly represented an attempt to intimidate Georgieva, said Staykov.
Georgieva received additional security protection after her mother, 76, died on February 15 in what Bulgarian Boulevard called “mysterious circumstances” in a fire in Bulgaria’s village of Beglezh.
The mother, a retired nurse, lived alone in a small house that burned down at midnight, with her charred remains found afterwards, said Sofia news agency Novinite on February 25. Police were said to be investigating whether or not the fire was deliberately started.
Shortly before her mother’s death, on February 4, Georgieva had claimed the Ministry of the Interior was not co-operating with her office’s investigations and had dismissed officials who had assisted her.
The video clip that has led to the anti-corruption investigation was not the first alleged attempt to link Georgieva with Petrov.
In October 2023, a message purporting to be from Petrov alleged he had given Georgieva €5,000 a month in the back room of a Sofia restaurant to influence her rulings on EPPO pre-litigation procedures, Bulgarian National Radio reported in October 2023.
