After the relative peace and quiet among the criminal groups in the past few weeks, in just two days in Sofia there has been a fight, followed by a shootout and a murder.
On the afternoon of February 28 in the centre of Sofia a group of men entered the office of the head of the Belasitsa Petrich football club Kostadin "Kotse Matsa" Hadjiivanov and beat him up.
In the ensuing chase on the Vassil Levksi boulevard, one of Hadjiivanov's bodyguards took out a pistol and shot at the assailants, wounding one of them in the shoulder.
Later the police arrested the seven men involved in the incident.
According to the preliminary interrogations the attackers wanted a considerable sum of money, 100 000 leva for a lumber-mill from Hadjiivanov, which he allegedly owed them but refused to pay.
Hadjiivanov has been a city councillor in Petrich and owns several companies and the city marketplace.
On the following night another person connected to football, the former owner of the past year's champion of Bulgaria Lokomotiv Plovdiv, Nikolai "Martenichkata" Popov was shot multiple times in front of his home in the Ovcha Kupel district of Sofia.
The 34-year-old Popov was taken by his relatives to the Pirogov emergency hospital where he died.
According to the police, Popov had a police record for fraud and other economic crimes and has been a credit millionaire.
According to sources from the Sofia Directorate of the Interior Ministry quoted by the internet information agency Focus, Popov owed a large sum of money to a notorious underground figure.
Meanwhile, on March 1 the Sofia Appellate Court (SAC) released Ivan "Doktora" Todorov on bail of 15 000 leva.
On February 21 Todorov was arrested and indicted for money laundering of around 50 million leva in 1999-2000. In its motives the court said that it could make a substantiated assumption that Todorov has committed this crime and that he could commit another one.
At its March 1 sitting, the SAC ruled that there was no firm evidence that the money he allegedly laundered had come from contraband as the prosecution argued and that the alleged money laundering happened when it was still not criminalized by the Penal Code.
According to the SAC, the evidence for the contraband was based on the testimony of a witness who later withdrew his statement.
Meanwhile, the Serbian police arrested the Croat citizen Robert Matanic who is suspected in six murders in Bulgaria.
Matanic and an associate barricaded themselves in a hotel room of Inex Hotel in the Serbian town of Negotin, armed with automatic weapons and hand grenades.
After more than 10 hours of talks they surrendered to the police. Charges have already been pressed against Matanic in Serbia for crimes committed in the period from 1995 to 2002.
In spite of the charges in Serbia the chief secretary of the Interior Ministry Boiko Borissov said that the Bulgarian authorities would demand the extradition of Matanic to Bulgaria.
He had illegally left the country several days ago.