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PETAR TONKOV
Pardoned by Vice President Angel Marin, the VAT fraudster returns to jail.
Petar Tonkov, 50, from Veliko Tarnovo, will be behind bars for 7 years. As the leader of a criminal group, Tonkov damaged the budget by BGN 778,000 from unpaid VAT to registered companies nationwide. Ivaylo Simeonov, who is close to him, will be in prison for 4 years, and two others have received suspended sentences.
Tonkov and his assistants worked on the scheme by issuing invoices for fictitious deliveries. The tax credit on them was not paid and it remained in the fuse companies under Tonkov’s control.
He was arrested in mid-2012 and the case against him was one of the first for tax crimes by the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office, which began to function at that time.
Tonkov is well known to the country’s police and prosecutors as an organizer of VAT fraud schemes since the late 1990s.
The fraudster went to prison for this crime in 2008 for budget damages of BGN 3.5 million.
It was launched ahead of schedule in 2011. This happened with a decree of the then vice president Ángel Marín, who saved him 1 year behind bars.
Then he is in the dormitory of the Lovech prison, where he has the right to leave. It is often noticed in Veliko Tarnovo. It will later turn out that he renewed his plans with false invoices while incarcerated. He was pardoned by Ángel Marín’s decree because he has secondary studies, works in private business, is divorced and his health has deteriorated.
During his time in prison, he realized his mistakes and was rewarded several times with vacations at home.
Months after his release, Petar Tonkov was officially detained during an operation by the CDCOC and the Special Prosecutor’s Office. Turns out, he started committing crimes by registering hollow companies and issuing fictitious invoices while on leave from prison. According to the investigation, this happened from January 2011, when Tonkov was still behind bars, until the summer of 2012, when he was arrested.
Petar Tonkov’s fictitious invoices were used by real companies in operation, but the unpaid VAT remained with the companies under his control, an inspection by “24 Chasa” showed. Over the years, the services of his criminal group have benefited many businessmen, including celebrities, as well as a former congressman who also became a client of Themis, but for other crimes.
This time Petar Tonkov will be in a real prison, not a bedroom. In addition to spending the next 7 years in the heat, the court also ordered his property forfeited.
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