The business police in Sliven have started a probe on a signal of Bivol about illegal extraction of radioactive rock from heaps of uranium mines in the forest fund of the State Forestry in Tvarditsa. The probe has been assigned after a signal to the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office of Cassations.

We told you in September that tens of thousands of tons of radioactive rubble and rock have been extracted and used illegally in construction with the sanction of Engineer Peycho Varbanov. The company carrying out the extraction is “Ekosediments” LTD, associated with the infamous Sliven businessman Yosif Yossifov AKA Yosko. Varbanov, who was an agent of the Communist Secret Services – State Security, DS – with the nickname “Gora” (Forest) is known for his close relationship with any power.

Peycho Varbanov AKA DS agent Gora is close to any power 

In 2009, the prosecution dismissed the investigation in illegal activity on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence to press charges against officials for criminal offense. The established breaches of the Regional Inspectorate for Environment and Waters (RIEW) were defined only as administrative offenses.

Sources of Bivol, close to the investigation, reported that the probe in irregularities has several directions. Investigators are seeking information about the last written statement issued by Usain Shakirov and Georgi Donchev for the felling of about 13 acres of pine forest near the heaps of the uranium mines and the extraction of rock from these areas. That record should have been kept by Gancho Petrov. At the time of the compilation of this document, namely Petrov was Director of the Regional Forestry in Sliven. Its trail was lost after it has been brought to Petrov.

Currently, Gancho Petrov is an expert in the Southeast Forestry Enterprise. Director Peycho Varbanov appointed him at the post after Petrov was released as Director of the Regional Forestry in Sliven. The name of Gancho Petrov is associated with a scandalous swap. While at the post of Director of the State Forestry in Nova Zagora, Petrov’s deputy approved for his family a swap of forests near Tvarditsa for a lucrative meadow on the banks of the Zhrebchevo dam. The swap is among the 153 deemed by the European Commission as a form of unregulated State aid.

The investigators are further probing whether the departments of the State Forestry Fund on Tvarditsa, which extract the rock, could have been fictitiously inflated. There is a check in the volume of extracted rock. There are suspicions that this volume has been times higher than the paid cubic meters.

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Димитър Стоянов

Работил в БНР, бТВ, Нова Телевизия и АгроТВ. Носител на приза “Журналист на годината” за 2018 г. Носител на специалната награда George Weidenfeld за смела разследваща журналистика за 2019 г. Почерпете Димитър и гарантирайте така неговата авторска мотивация, нашата редакционна независимост и Вашето читателско право на честна и обективна журналистика.

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