Fraud worth millions of euros is taking place on the northern Black Sea coast near Bulgaria’s maritime capital, Varna. An investigation by Svoboden Glas (“Free Voice”) reveals that our country has been defrauded of more than €120,000,000 due to the brazen actions of several institutions and a specific criminal scheme that is destroying both private and state property in Bulgaria.

At the centre of the problem is a plot of land near the Riviera resort by Varna. In recent years, this land, previously part of the state forest fund, has been turned into private property and transformed into a construction site for hotels that could soon open their doors to tourists.

The story of this 7-decared (about 1.7 acres) property, located in an attractive area, begins back in 1951 when a resident of the then-village of Vinitsa (now a district of Varna) bought two fields. The descendants of this woman showed no interest in the land until 2013. Although over the years the plot had been listed in the cadastral map of the State Forestry Department in Varna, the department could not provide a deed of ownership, which is why the original deed from 1951 was able to prevail.

Over time, the land changed hands several times. The first sale was in September 2014, when it was sold for 9,000 leva despite having a tax valuation of 210,000 leva. The most recent sale was on June 20, 2023, for €313,000 to a company linked to the well-known Daniel Slavov – also known as Dido Dunkata — even though the actual market value was around €14 million.

Construction started rapidly, with the Regional Inspectorate of Environment and Water (RIEW) – Varna issuing permits at an unusually fast pace, raising doubts about whether construction may have begun even before the permits were officially issued.

You can learn more about the property and construction mafia, RIEW – Varna, and the criminal inaction on the part of the state in the conversation between Ivelin Mihaylov and lawyer Krasimira Stefanova.

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