Bulgarian PM Asks Border Police Chiefs to Resign

Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has requested the top leadership of Border Police to resign following media reports of suspected foul play in a public tender.

Local media revealed on Sunday that a company reportedly owned by a Bulgarian citizen charged with migrant smuggling had won a public tender for transporting migrants and refugees detained near the country’s borders to accommodation centres inside the country.   

Borisov has asked Interior Minister Rumyana Bachvarova to replace the director of Border Police and his deputy after the scandal broke out, bTV broadcaster reported on Monday.

Grigor Grigorov, owner of Edelweiss 0707 company, was arrested near the town of Tsarevo, on the Black Sea coast close to the border with Turkey, while smuggling into the country 66 irreggular migrants from Afghanistan and Iraq in a bus.

During the period of judicial investigation and while under house arrest, Grigorov transferred the ownership of the company to his father, according to bTV. Under its new owner, the company won a public tender worth nearly BGN 200,000 (EUR 100,000) for the transportation of migrants and refugees apprehended in the border regions to accommodation centres run by the State Agency for Refugees, bTV said.

The bus used in the smuggling attempt in June by Grigorov still stands in a police parking lot in Tsarevo. Ironically, the company that won the tender would have used the same vehicle to take migrants and refugees to accommodation centres, bTV said.

Grigorov declined comment when contacted by bTV on Monday, the broadcaster said.