DANS summoned the shift managers of "Captain Andreevo" for questioning! Lawyer Adelina Natina before FACTS

The director of the “Customs“ Petya Bankova was detained for 72 hours and is accused of participating in an organized criminal group for trade in influence, smuggling, bribery with three other people. Stefan Dimitrov, Marin Dimitrov and Nikola Nikolov also face charges. Attorney Adelina Natina (right) spoke to FAKTI on the topic.

- Lawyer Natina, what will happen today with the arrested executive director of the "Customs" Agency? Petya Bankova?
- At the moment, we have a decree of detention for 72 hours, and today or tomorrow the measure of remand will be considered. The request will be made to the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office so that Petya Bankova is permanently detained in investigative custody.

- What documents and what was seized during the searches of her home and workplace?
- Notebooks and notes that she was carrying were seized from her home. Currently, Ms. Bankova is pursuing a master's degree in “Psychology”, she knows several languages and is upgrading her qualifications. Her husband's consumer credit agreement was also seized from her home. Investigators looked for money, but none was found. The head of the "Customs" Agency lives in the capital, in a 50-year-old block of flats, on the top floor of the block. This is important because all kinds of interpretations are introduced on the subject. During the search of her workplace, the investigators searched and asked if she had money or drugs, which was absurd. Neither money nor drugs were found. Work notes were seized from her workplace detailing contraband channels that had come to her to work on. It is about smuggling of all kinds of goods, prohibited substances. Accordingly, there were also her notes in which she described what measures she was taking to break these channels. The most interesting thing is that these notes and nothing else were seized.

- It is about smuggling channels that were the object of interest on the part of the “Customs” Agency. and she worked?
- Exactly. Let's remember that a week ago in Burgas, a drug smuggling channel was busted. A large shipment of cocaine was found in cartons of bananas. It is about 170 kilograms. Such a quantity of cocaine has never been caught in the history of customs, such a quantity has not been found in Bulgaria. There is some data, I mean data, that the money from these drugs was going to be used to finance votes in the upcoming elections. I say there is data, not evidence. Because if she had any evidence, she would have given it to the authorities. He just had to work harder to gather that evidence. But that ended there. Apparently someone is interested Agency “Mitnitsi“ not currently working.

There is another thing that was very interesting from yesterday. It is that before she was brought in as an accused – when it comes to corruption, according to the new law, only the new Commission for Countering Corruption, employees of the “Customs” Agency have the right to work. – more precisely, the shift managers of Captain Andreevo, have been summoned to DANS to give explanations.

It's just that DANS works very actively and tries to exert all kinds of pressure on employees of the "Customs" Agency to assert certain facts, which for me borders on the absurd. I do not see under which law DANS allows itself to work on this file, since it is not a competent party. After February 28, 2023, only the new Anti-Corruption Commission can investigate corruption.

- Four people are currently detained. Is there a connection between people and what is it?
- None of the names that were written in the decree for detention for 72 hours are known to Mrs. Bankova. We gave an explanation exactly in this direction that not a single name is known to her, if it is a question that any of these names are engaged in smuggling and illegal activity at the border points. These names mean nothing to Mrs. Bankova. There is another. She learned many nicknames for people who were involved in the smuggling business. If these names have any nicknames, as they have described them in signalitne, is another matter. But they are not known to her by name. Another thing that was very interesting is the following. In her charge of being involved as a participant in an organized criminal group that carried out smuggling, influence peddling, etc. it says that this organized crime group started working in the month of January 2023 and ended on April 3, 2024. Let's clarify something that is important. Petya Bankova has been appointed to the “Customs” Agency. on February 8, 2023 as Deputy Director. She never had anything to do with customs for anything before February 8, 2023. That's the funniest thing about the whole situation. From February 8, 2023 to February 20, 2024, she was the deputy executive director, and her every step during that time was subject to the control of the executive director, Mr. Pavel Tonev.