The Anti-Corruption Fund (ACF) sent for inspection to Minister Boyko Rashkov connections between the former Minister of Interior Mladen Marinov and the owners of the security company Delta Guard EOOD Dimitar Spasov – Karatista and Marin Milchev Rusev. Witness allegations in the 2020 ACF Eight Dwarfs investigation also pointed to such a possible link.
The signal received from the ACF contains a report from a police officer at the Nessebar Regional Police Department from 2005. The signal is without a sender, but the names and events described in it point to a source in the Ministry of Interior, which makes it mandatory for institutional verification.
The memorandum attached to the signal sets out information for stopping for inspection of 3 cars on the night of 26.11.2005. The last of the inspected cars, a Volkswagen Tuareg, owned by Delta-S OOD, Sofia, was driven by Dimitar Spasov Spasov from Sofia. Two of the passengers in the car identified themselves with official police cards as employees of the Security, Prevention and Protection of Public Order Directorate (SPOOR) in the city of Sofia. These were Mladen Naidenov Marinov from Sofia and Marin Milchev Rusev from Sofia. Evgeni Tsvetanov Dimitrov from Sofia and Nikolay Ivanov Minchev from Sofia were also in the car. According to the whistleblower, some of the passengers in all three cars stopped for inspection were criminals. This circumstance is an additional reason for a detailed check of the signal.
The signal received from the ACF confirms the allegations of witnesses from the „Eight Dwarfs“ investigation about the connection of the former Minister of Interior Mladen Marinov with the owners of the security company „Delta Guard“. The driver of the Volkswagen Tuareg described in the report, Dimitar Spasov Spasov, also known as Mitko Karatista, is the owner of the security company Delta Guard EOOD until October 29, 2021 and a character in the ACF film. One of the two who identified themselves as police officers of SPOOR, Sofia, is Marin Milchev Rusev, subsequently the sole owner of Delta-C EOOD and Delta Guard EOOD. The other police officer of SPOOR, Sofia, is Mladen Naidenov Marinov, who on September 20, 2018 was elected Minister of Interior and held this position until July 24, 2020.
The investigation of the „Eight Dwarfs“ also claimed that the brother of the former Minister of Interior Mladen Marinov was the driver and security guard of the former director of the Sofia Investigation Petyo Petrov – Euro, whose informal office in the restaurant „The Eight Dwarfs“ is guarded by “ Delta Guard EOOD.
Following the publication of all parts of the Eight Dwarfs investigation, the ACF submitted several signals to the Ministry of Interior requesting a comprehensive and in-depth inspection of the activities of the security company Delta Guard EOOD, as well as the possible connection of former and current employees of Ministry of Interior with her.
The signals submitted by the ACF in the period July – September 2020, when the Ministers of Interior were Mladen Marinov and Hristo Terziiski, remained practically without consequences. According to Minister Terziiski, the inspections did not reveal any violations.
However, by a letter dated 01.09.2021, the Minister of the Interior informed the ACF that the previous inspections for illegal actions of employees of the Ministry of Interior were biased, and that in fact in the period from 01.01.2018 to 31.03.2020 before The Eight Dwarfs restaurant had police cars all the time. The letter of the Minister also states that the violations by the security company „Delta Guard“ Ltd. on the territory of RUP Dupnitsa were not properly sanctioned.
„We believe that the newly received information supports the well-founded suspicions of unregulated relations between senior officials of the Ministry of Interior and the owners of the security company Delta Guard EOOD. We appeal for a new internal inspection of the actions of Interior Ministry officials in the case, as well as for maximum transparency in view of the high public interest in the facts presented in the series „Eight Dwarfs“, said the director of the Anti-Corruption Fund Boyko Stankushev.
