The accused of tax fraud through a scheme for fictitious fuel delivery to the NATO base in Novo Selo have paid their bail and have been released. Today they appeared in the courtroom of the Plovdiv Court of Appeal, which, at the prosecutor's protest, is reviewing their permanent detention measures, bTV reported.
Two weeks ago, the district court released Zhivodar Terziev and Boris Ivanov from custody on bail of 25 thousand leva each.
Boris Ivanov's full tankers would leave Zhivodar Terziev's tax warehouse in the direction of Novo Selo, but they never arrived there. Six months ago, Zhivodar became suspicious and asked the American embassy, and they told him that there was not enough fuel at the military base.
Zhivodar Terziev's lawyer, Svetlana Petkova, said that the only person who could reveal where the tankers were going was the truck driver.
He is currently at large, according to her - he was seen a few days ago in Burgas. Two weeks ago, the prosecution claimed that the tanker driver in question was abroad.
According to the prosecution, from 2014 to 2024, a Bulgarian company declared to the customs authorities that it supplied fuel to an American military base, and therefore was exempt from excise duty and VAT according to an Agreement between Bulgaria and the United States. Forged documents were used for this purpose. Both Zhivodar Terziev and Boris Ivanov, however, deny any involvement.
The curious thing is that in the summer Zhivodar Terziev reported to the American embassy and the prosecutor general that he had doubts about whether the tankers loaded into his tax warehouse had reached the American military base. The embassy replied that there had been no such deliveries.
A few months later Zhivodar Terziev was arrested.