The Secretary of the CL “Support” Andrey Varbanov has worked as a “consultant” in the firm NIKKOMERS 01, which in 2010 was a minority shareholder in the military plant “Dunarit”. His salary reached 23,000 levs a month. The syndicalist had a significant deposit in CCB, but managed to rescue his money by making transfers in the last days before the closure of the bank.

In the period January 2008 – October 2011, Varbanov has been given a second part-time employment contract to work four hours per day, and from November 2011 – a contract for an eight-hour workday in NIKKOMERS 01, documents that Bivol examined show. Despite the well-paid consulting work, he obviously managed to find time for trade union matters as secretary of the Union, for which he was also paid a salary.

The salary from NIKKOMERS 01 is impressive for Bulgarian standards. According to a reference from the National Social Security Institute, in 2008 he received 19,558.30 levs per month; in 2009 – 23,469.96 levs per month; in January -April 2010 – 17,602.47 levs per month, in May 2010 – August 2012 – 9,779.15 levs per month, and from September 2012 to August 2013-17,602.65 levs per month. Meanwhile, Varbanov is a retiree since October 1, 2010.

By June 6, 2014, the NIKKOMERS company had 48 million euro in credit from CCB. In reality, the wages of the trade union leader came from the money of depositors in the bank. Once the pyramid broke, depositors were in turn compensated by taxpayers through the Deposit Guarantee Fund.

Bivol revealed in a previous investigation that Varbanov regularly received large loans from the individual Dimitar Gerassimov. In addition, the offshore company EFV, of CCB majority shareholder Tsvetan Vasilev that is the majority owner in “Dunarit”, established for him and the boss of CL “Support”, Konstantin Trenchev, offshore companies with Swiss accounts. The prosecution is also probing this case and it has questioned Trenchev and Varbanov in connection with the draining of CCB.

Varbanov among the “insider” depositors in CCB

The syndicalist and his son held significant amounts of deposits in CCB, a check, conducted by Bivol, showed. Shortly before the closure of the bank, Varbanov managed to transfer 25,150 euro on June 17, and 30,000 euro on June 18th. 72,630 euro remained in his account, an amount that is covered by the Deposit Guarantee Fund. It turns out that the “insider” syndicalist has managed to rescue around 30,000 euro.

Varbanov, however, did not take such expeditious care of the money the Union he headed. “Support” was burned by the closure of the bank with a deposit of 650,542 levs.

Andrey Varbanov’s son, Marin, also failed to rescue everything. At the time of the closing of CCB, he had a deposit of 127,027 euro. Marin Varbanov made an unsuccessful attempt to transfer 125,000 euro on June 23, when the bank has already closed, but the transfer was rejected.

Andrey Varbanov was not found for comment, and the union headquarters declined to answer questions on the ground that he was being treated in a hospital.

***

If you find this article useful, support our work with a small donation.

Pay a Bivol Tax!

We will highly appreciate if you decide to support us with monthly donations keeping the option Monthly

• About
• Latest Posts

Екип на Биволъ

Екип на сайта за разследваща журналистика. Научете повече тук

Latest posts by Екип на Биволъ (see all)

• Powerful US Lobbyist Aids Businesses Linked to Sanctioned Bulgarian Lawmaker, Has Joint Company with Notorious Attorney - 8 January 2022
• Interview for FAKTI.bg
  

  Assen Yordanov: If a lustration law had been passed, Bulgaria would not be in this state

  - 19 November 2021
• After Peevski, the Magnitsky Act must target his puppeteers. #LUSTRATION is crucial! - 8 June 2021

This post is also available in: Bulgarian