At the moment, nearly 50 pre-trial proceedings have been initiated, which are related to the shares against buying votes. Nearly 140 reports were received, over 100 inspections were carried out, and almost a quarter of them were terminated. In 14 of the reports, there was information about a crime. 471 warning protocols were prepared. To date, there have been over 100 operations against vote buying. Today, there are such operations in five regions of the country. At the moment, 23 people have been detained for buying votes, but this number will grow.
This was stated at a briefing at the Ministry of the Interior by Minister Atanas Ilkov, who gave details of the actions against vote buying, quoted by novini.bg.
"All reports that come to us are immediately checked. The results are reported to the competent prosecutor's office. If there are additional orders from the supervising prosecutor, they are implemented. Regarding the signal about 200 people buying votes - every single person is checked. Regarding some of these persons, we had started checks with the prosecutor's office and DANS. I want to reiterate that every signal is verified. The whole picture about stocks and signals is in front of you. If anyone thinks that any employee can hide a signal, that is not the case and they are lying. Regarding the alert in question about these 200 individuals, there were no specifics for some of them, but we are checking everything. I will repeat again that we had started checks for some persons from this report. We work very well with the prosecutor's office and DANS. We are making efforts to identify the new faces of vote buying. We have directed a large part of our efforts in this direction," revealed Minister Ilkov.
"I urge every single Bulgarian citizen who has information about vote buying to file a report, as long as there is clear and accurate evidence. It is very easy for the media to say things. Whoever has a signal, should submit it, because otherwise you leave the media and things get easier. We have firewood vs. voice alerts, but they are fading. I cannot comment on the cost per vote. The prices vary, but this is the work of the investigators and I have no way to comment," the interior minister announced.
"I returned satisfied with the meeting of the Council "Justice and Internal Affairs" in Luxembourg. Everyone there gave excellent marks for our work and handling the migrant pressure. I hope that by the end of the year we can also enter the land-based Schengen. This will be a reward for all the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, who did a hell of a lot of work. We have a 70% drop in migrant pressure," he was emphatic.
"I cannot comment on the action of the European Prosecutor's Office in Varna. I don't have permission from the supervising prosecutor. The verification of the theater drain is still in progress. There is a report about a person from the Ministry of Culture who probably participated in the schemes, but at the moment there is no way to comment", Minister Atanas Ilkov answered journalists' questions.