site.btaUPDATED Fugitive Gambling Mogul Bojkov: I Am Ready to Return to Bulgaria Once I Have Opportunity to Do So

"I am ready to return to Bulgaria as soon as I have the physical opportunity to do so," fugitive gambling mogul Vassil Bojkov said Thursday during a Q&A session with Bulgarian reporters in a video conference call from the United Arab Emirates. 

Bojkov was once considered to be the wealthiest Bulgarian with assets estimated at between 1.5 billion and 3 billion leva. In early 2020, he was charged with evasion of more than 700 million leva in gambling licensing fees, money laundering, extortion, bribery, murder, rape, leading an organized crime group since 2014, trading in influence, and unlawful possession of cultural assets. In July 2020, he was also charged with crimes against the Republic. Bojkov left the country before the full-scale crackdown against him and is now in the United Arab Emirates. 

In the video call on Thursday, Bojkov said that he cannot leave Dubai because of "the actions of the [Bulgarian] prosecuting magistracy". 

He confirmed that on March 8 he gave evidence to the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO). "The EPPO found me because I am not hiding," he said. 

Bojkov also said that he had not known beforehand about the detention on March 17 of GERB leader and former prime minister Boyko Borissov, former finance minister Vladislav Goranov, and GERP PR officer Sevdelina Arnaoudova, who Bojkov claims had racketeered him. The three were released from detention on the following day and are to be questioned by a prosecutor on March 28. 

In the video call Bojkov once again repeated that he had been pressured with threats that his business will be destroyed if he did not follow Borissov's and Goranov's demands, and also that he had personally given various amounts of cash to Goranov and Arnaoudova. 

"I am not a criminal and I want to return to Bulgaria. All charges against me are fabricated," Bojkov said, adding that he did not have unpaid taxes about which he can show a document from the National Revenue Agency. 

He also said that he is waiting "to be questioned officially" by the Bulgarian investigative authorities. 

Earlier, Bojkov has claimed that the Dubai court has rejected a demand for his extradition by the Bulgarian authorities. Also, his company, New Games, has taken Bulgaria to court in the EU Court of Justice in Strasbourg for losses after the business was terminated. 

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov commented before Bulgarian reporters in Brussels on Thursday recent steps by the prosecuting magistracy which he said demonstrated "the absurd double standards" it resorts to. 

Petkov said, "A day of reckoning is coming. When the Bulgarian and the European prosecutions have one and the same information but the moves of the two prosecutions are totally different, with one not going ahead to open a pre-trial proceeding and question Vassil Bojkov while the European prosecution has already interviewed him and is working on the issue, all lights shine and expose how ineffective and nonworking the Bulgarian prosecution is". "It is puzzling to see how in the course of 18 months the Bulgarian prosecution cannot even start a pre-trial proceeding [on Bijkov's alert] but did so in the course of just a few days regarding a probe against Finance Minister Assen Vassilev. The double standards the prosecution uses is utterly absurd," Petkov said. 

The Bulgarian Prime Minister is in Brussels to attend a EU summit. 

It was announced on March 23 that the Specialized Prosecution Office had instituted pre-trial proceedings for abuse of office against Deputy Prime Minister Assen Vassilev on March 15. The move came after the prosecution received an alert against Vassilev from the owner of Insa Oil, which is a company trading in petrol and petroleum products.