The telephones of citizens and companies in Sofia have been tapped over the past seven years, announced the Ministry of the Interior last Wednesday.

"The National Security Service (NSS) uncovered an organization that has illegally wiretapped telephone subscribers in the capital," a press release of the Ministry said.

The next day, General Atanas Atanassov, NSS director, said that the organization was a well-built conspiracy of five to 10 former state security officials who left the Interior Ministry in 1989. Each of them knew only the person immediately above him in the hierarchy.

According to information from the Ministry, the perpetrators, contractors and the range of targeted individuals have already been identified and most have been questioned.

"The inquiry was started in February, the file was labeled `strictly confidential and extremely important,'" said Ivan Rachev, press attache of the Ministry of Justice's Special Investigations Service.

Before a regular cabinet session last Thursday, Interior Minister Georgi Petkanov said that the eavesdropping was performed out of economic interests and no judiciaries' or politicians' telephones were tapped.

Counterintelligence officers discovered a bugging device in one of Sofia's telephone exchange centres in the beginning of 2001. All of the calls made on the city's landlines travel through such centres.

The check followed a signal from Sofia Telephone and Telegraph Communications (STTC), Rositsa Vassileva, director of STTC told BTA. "We found the tapping machine and immediately notified the competent institutions," she said.

Similar installations were found in almost all the telephone exchanges in Sofia. The wiretapping devices were set up in a similar fashion and, according to the press release from the Interior Ministry, this proved the organized nature of the crime.

The devices were situated in special telephone exchange rooms for wartime operations which were only accessible to a few people. These rooms are under the control of the Defence Ministry. Some of those who have access are probably among the individuals who are being charged, Petkanov said.

The wiretapping began in 1994 and continued until February of this year. Petkanov said it was not prosecuted earlier because until the end of 1997 it was not considered a crime. After changes in the punitive code, a new article was added which officially made tapping a crime.