Bulgaria To Track Organized Crime After Crime Wave
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
SOFIA, Bulgaria — Bulgaria created an investigative unit targeting organized crime yesterday after a wave of unsolved contract killings and allegations of official collusion in Mafia networks.
The prime minister, Sergey Stanishev, and his new interior minister, Mihail Mikov, formed the unit amid criticism of alleged ties between the Bulgarian authorities and organized crime. Recent investigations by the European Union, the American justice department, and within Bulgaria, show that the country’s crime gangs have a key role in European trafficking of everything from sex slaves to antiquities.
The reports underlined that Bulgaria’s Mafia was thriving aided by the interior ministry officials who are meant to be hunting them.
