(NAPSI)—Tzvetan Vassilev’s
scheme was as simple as it was daring: buy a bank and, over the course of
several years, systematically drain its assets through a complex and opaque network
of shell companies into private businesses he controlled.
The story of Vassilev’s rise and fall
began in 1995, when he was named head of Foreign Currency Transactions and
Liquidity for the Central Cooperative Bank; a position he held until the spring
of 2000. During his tenure at the bank, Vassilev
set up a private financial company, Fina S- AD, and
gradually transferred approximately 30 loyal and hand-picked subordinates
from the bank to Fina S-. Once the personnel were
in place, Vassilev made his move.
In May of 2000, Vassilev resigned from the
Central Cooperative Bank and, shortly thereafter, acquired the Corporate
Commercial Bank AD, which at the time had only $5.5 million in assets. Once
the purchase was complete, Vassilev appointed
himself the Executive Director of the Management Board and later, Chairman of
the Bank’s Supervisory Board. As Chairman of both the Management Board
and the Supervisory Board, Vassilev not only
directed every transaction at the bank, but he approved them as well. Contemporaneous
with taking over the Bank, Vassilev and his
associates structured a shady web of onshore and offshore companies that
would eventually funnel the Bank’s assets into a network of legitimate
businesses owned exclusively by Vassilev.
Once in place, Vassilev’s shell companies
were granted exclusive access to the Bank and all its investment activities.
Through this unholy union, Vassilev began
systematically bloodletting the Bank’s assets through the network of
shell companies and directly into his new businesses.
By running the loans through shell companies, Vassilev
capitalized his personal business enterprises free from the watchful eye of
regulators.
For years, Vassilev milked the Bank to support
his personal businesses and his increasingly posh lifestyle. In addition to
capitalizing his personal businesses, Vassilev syphoned millions of dollars directly into his
increasingly padded pockets in the form of loan agreements made between the
Bank and the various shell companies under his control.
The scheme was successful in part due to the complicity of Vassilev’s staff and of several employees of KPMG
Bulgaria OOD, who helped cook the books so the Bank’s activities
appeared above-board. But, as was the case with Bernie Madoff,
as Vassilev’s scheme grew bigger, it became
increasingly difficult to cover, eventually catching the attention of
regulators.
The scandal over the Corporate Commercial Bank AD erupted in June 2014.
Within a week, more than 20 percent of the deposits were withdrawn by
customers from the Bank and on June 20 of that year, the Bulgarian National
Bank placed the Corporate Commercial Bank AD under special supervision. For Vassilev, the game was up. Unlike the authentic Bernie Madoff, who turned himself in, Vassilev
fled; first to Austria and
then to Serbia,
where he remains, free from extradition by Bulgarian authorities.
When the dust settled, Vassilev and his
co-defendants were charged with embezzling 2.56 billion Levs,
the equivalent of $1.51 billion USD. In addition, Vassilev
and three former Bank employees were indicted for stealing 207 million Levs in cash, the equivalent of $126.6 million USD. But
the damage didn’t end there: Vassilev’s
wife, Antoaneta Vassileva,
was also charged following her audacious purchase of a palatial /20m estate
on Lake Geneva. Even Vassilev’s
daughter Radosveta was caught up in the scandal, formally charged with money laundering in June.
All three family members are wanted by the international policing
organization, INTERPOL.
From his self-imposed exile in Belgrade,
Mr. Vassilev is now plotting his comeback in the
form of an international campaign to convince American lawmakers to invoke
the Global Magnitsky Act against the Chief
Prosecutor of Bulgaria
and the very officials who uncovered Vassilev’s
fraud. Using what’s left of his dwindling war chest, Vassilev hired a Washington, D.C.−based
lobbyist and Bill Richardson, the former governor of New Mexico who famously paid hush money to
keep a woman from revealing their affair while he was in office. Given the
undeniable facts of his case, dovetailed with his refusal to defend himself
in Bulgaria,
Vassilev faces the impossible task of convincing
the U.S. Congress to turn against both the Bulgarian and the international
justice system by which he stands accused. In the meantime, the disgraced
former governor of New Mexico
and Vassilev’s other lobbyists seem happy to
take all the cash they can get from Vassilev’s
fallen empire.
On the Net:North American Precis Syndicate, Inc.(NAPSI)