There are a number of people in Bulgaria who travel everywhere with a contingent of very noticeable bodyguards. Whether it's a status thing or paranoia, a lot of these people don't actually need this protection.

Emil Dimitrov, however, definitely does.

The unimposing former Finance Ministry auditor sat at a press conference on Tuesday, visibly trembling, and looking like a man who will shortly have an array of hired goons hunting him down to either intimidate him, or try and get rid of him altogether.

He has a right to be a little nervous. Dimitrov has recently become the head of Bulgaria's most corrupt institution, the customs administration. Unlike many of his predecessors, he's there to stop one of the country's largest industries, smuggling.

An estimated one billion leva per year are lost to the shadow economy from the customs service.

So in order to stop this, the new government has brought in Bulgaria's version of Eliot Ness, but it remains to be seen whether he'll be untouchable. Dimitrov rose to media stardom in 1999 when, as a Finance Ministry auditor, he revealed several documents demonstrating the scale of corruption in Bulgaria's customs administration. He was forced to resign shortly thereafter because the most damaging document in question was said to be false, but he did anything but step back into the shadows.

His book Customs (Mitnici) sold a remarkable 16,000 copies and advanced his image as a crusader against Bulgaria's dodgy elements. In the book, he extensively detailed the problems within the customs administration and named a variety of perpetrators.

Elected largely on an anti-corruption platform, the National Movement Simeon II has made an excellent decision to bring him back into the civil service. He has already started his crusade, replacing top-level employees at a remarkably quick rate while starting the ball rolling into investigating why so much money is re-routed from the state coffers to the country's less than honest elements.

This time around though, it appears finding the perpetrators will be easier, as the government will embrace any information he can dig up. But making serious changes and laying blame will be much tougher. Dimitrov faces a whole new wave of intimidation, and some serious threats to his health. In a few months, his security detail may need to be an entire military unit.

On Tuesday, he was hesitant about revealing very much information. One of the few things he said was that the customs administration has historically been an area where political parties will siphon money out of to finance their own legal, or illegal activities. He also spoke about how he has already not been warmly welcomed.

Dimitrov does have the majority of the Bulgarian population on his side who all seem to be telling the government that this appointment has been one of their best decisions to date.

The biggest question now is how far he'll be able to go. Without nerves of steel, and a car made of similar bullet-resistant material, Dimitrov will undoubtedly fall very hard.

Whether he can rise to true stardom in Bulgaria, on a level comparable to Eliot Ness's fame in the U.S., depends on one factor alone - him.