Prosecutor’s Office Readies with New Charges of Misappropriations with SAPARD

The newly instituted special unit at the prosecutor's office investigates misappropriations in projects of the SAPARD programme, funded with about 3 million BGN, farmer.bg reported.

It is referred to two new cases, initiated after calls by OLAF. No charges have been pressed about those cases before. European Fraud Office suspects that the crimes have been committed by the beneficiaries of the projects, by civil servants and intermediaries.

The special unit monitors more than 220 cases and correspondence about crimes connected with SAPARD, PHARE and ISPA funds. They include embezzlement, document frauds, smuggling and tax evasion. Some of those investigations were started after warnings by OLAF.

Among the cases that have been closely watched by the EC are the ones against the former head of State Fund Agriculture Asen Drumev. In December he was arrested and charged of intentional dereliction and embezzlement of vast scale.

Later he was released on bail to the amount of 3000 BGN. According to the state prosecution Drumev has robbed the fund of 618 441.04 BGN. The money was allocated to different companies as part of the SAPARD programme. The prosecutor's office believes that Drumev illegally arranged that the funding be allocated to dubious projects.

If he is found guilty on both charges against him, Drumev can spend up to 20 years behind bars.

Together with the two newly pressed charges the lawsuits against Drumev add up to 3. Another charge was pressed against him in March, accusing him of illegally signing contracts for the allocation of 48 895 750 BGN, 12 million of them coming from Bulgarian budget. For such cases the law makes provision for 3 to 10 years of prison.