Bulgarian Revenue Agency Closes Water Park in Coastal Village Mind the horns!

Since August 15, the water park “Neptune” near the village of Ravadinovo on the southern Bulgarian Black Sea coast is on the National Revenue Agency’s (NRA) list of businesses that are subject to levied closure as a compulsory administrative measure for not issuing cash receipts and de facto – theft of VAT. The municipal parking lot in the coastal town of Sozopol is also on the list for the same violations.

Sample of nationwide offenders as declared by the NRA

Since then, the NRA has been republishing the list daily, updating it with new sites, yet the water park is not only not closed, it is operating full steam. However, visitors are at risk of not receiving compensation from insurers in the event of an incident, as the State has de facto declared that the facility is operating illegally.

The company that manages the waterpark is named “P & K Group Sozopol“. It is currently owned by Konstantin Tumpalov and he is its sole manager. The company also owns the land on which the park is built. Both the land and the whole water park are mortgaged in the Bulgarian American Credit Bank (BACB) of Tsvetelina Borislavova, the former live-in girlfriend of Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, as the facility is financed with a credit line from the bank in the amount of BGN 14 million.

The castle in Ravadinovo is built on a land whose status is for a farm

Following the business connections of the owners leads to the Mayor of Sozopol Panayot Reyzi and Georgi Tumpalov, also known as the “Baron from Ravadinovo”, for the kitsch castle replica built illegally on a land with a status “for a farm”.

Tumpalov’s castle is not issuing cash receipts either, as revealed by an investigation by the TV show “Lords of the Air” in 2016. And even if they wanted to issue such receipts, there is no way, since the site had been built illegally on land with unchanged status. However, Tumpalov enjoys a special treatment by the country’s rulers, as shown in the picture on which the tax evader is seen in the company of the Minister of Tourism Nikolina Angelkova.

Georgi Tumpalov and Nikolina Angelkova

Konstantin Georgiev Tumalov is the son of Georgi Tumpalov and is a partner with Panayot Reyzi’s daughter – Petya Panayotova Reyzi, in a company with a similar name – K & P Group.

It is presumed that the P and the K in P & K Group Sozopol, the owner-company of the water park, stand for the initials of the names of Konstantin and Petya, or Panayot himself, even though he is not formally listed as a co-owner.

In the past, Georgi Tumpalov made headlines as a wrestler and a former representative of the VIS 2 organized crime group on the southern Black Sea coast. For a certain period of time, he was targeted by the Commission for the Confiscation of Illegally Acquired Property and was charged with racketeering and extortion. He was eventually exonerated on all counts.

Bivol’s investigation into the scandalous land swaps on the Black Sea coast revealed that Tumpalov had been involved in these corrupt and robbing schemes along with Bozhidar Tomalev or Dario Tomalleti. Tomalev, who presented himself as a politician in 2014, is also tangled in an affair with 2,000 decares of municipal land in the village of Kableshkovo in which he had been actively assisted by the Mayor of the town of Pomorie Ivan Alexiev.

It must be closed, but it is in operation!

An on-site check by Bivol showed that despite the closure being set by the NRA for August 16, the water park and its establishments remain in full operation to date, which means that the special treatment by the government continues.

However, it is unclear whether the insurance that is included in the admission fee will be valid in case of an incident or accident.

The Mayor of Sozopol Panayot Reyzi has been involved in numerous scandals on the coast, such as poaching or the attempts to build in the protected site “Alepu”. Adding the fact that VAT is been stolen even from the municipal parking lot in Sozopol is a significant assessment of his management style.

The situation in which a company, associated both with local authorities and thugs is stealing VAT from taxpayers to repay a loan to a bank linked to the central government is also very much indicative and illuminating.

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