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On June 2, the US Department of State announced the designation of four former Bulgarian public officials as well as one current official for involvement in corrupt activities. This designation is based on the same legal framework the State Department used in its May 19 designation of Albania’s for
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned three Bulgarians for corruption in Bulgaria, as well as their networks encompassing 64 entities.
The move was part of the largest Global Magnitsky action taken in a single day, targeting more than 65 individuals and entities for their significant acts of corruption in Bulgaria, the US Treasury Department has announced.
The action targets prominent Bulgarian gambling oligarch Vassil Bozhkov, former MP and media tycoon Delyan Peevski, and deputy chief of the National Bureau for Control on Special Intelligence-Gathering Devices, Ilko Zhelyazkov.
Bozhkov has allegedly bribed government officials on several occasions. These officials include a current political leader and the former chairman of the now-abolished State Commission on Gambling, the US announced.
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Peevski dismissed the designation as an absolutely inadmissible, biased act that is at odds with the spirit and meaning of the Magnitsky Act. “This is so because I have done nothing to harm internationally recognized human rights, I am not a civil servant and have not participated in corrupt acts, and the listed reasons for the imposed sanctions do not state a single true fact, he siad in an open letter to the media, released late Wednesday evening, adding that he will challenge the sanctions in court. The businessman blamed a media oligarch and privatizer who brags of his contacts and has spent considerable financial and political resources on this campaign. He did not name that person but was most probably referring to the Capital weekly publisher Ivo Prokopiev. The two and their media empires have been locked in a long-drawn feud.
US State Dept. blacklists five Bulgarian public officials over corruption Casper1774 Studio/Shutterstock.com
SOFIA (Bulgaria), June 3 (SeeNews) - The US State Department banned five Bulgarians from entering the United States due to their involvement in significant corruption , it said.
The persons sanctioned are Bulgaria s former deputy economy minister Alexander Manolev, Petar Haralampiev - former director of the State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad, Krasimir Tomov - the former chief secretary of the State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad, former MP Delyan Peevski, as well as Ilko Zhelyazkov - an official in the National Bureau for Control on Special Intelligence-Gathering Devices, the State Department said in a statement on Wednesday.