LESS than 24 hours after the media reported that Spanish police in Valencia had busted a Bulgarian criminal group involved in stealing and trafficking cars, revenge was unleashed in Sofia and Varna.
Within a day, the police reported three attempted murders - two in Sofia and one in Varna, all of them of men known to the police as car thieves.
The first victim was Ivan "Giovanito" Paunov, 35, who was wounded while having drinks with his girlfriend in a bar in the centre of Varna.
According to witnesses, Paunov and the former Miss Varna, Mihaela Mircheva were sitting at a table on the evening of March 14 near the window of bar Soho when an unidentified man shot at the bar with a Kalashnikov automatic rifle.
According to Interior Ministry chief secretary Boiko Borissov, Paunov was a member of the gang headed by Varna-born Konstantin "Rogacha" Rogov that had been stealing cars in Spain. Paunov was alleged to have been one of the few men who managed to leave Spain before police started arresting the gang members about a year ago.
Rogov is allegedly the organiser of the criminal group busted earlier this week in Spain.
Less than two hours after the shooting in Varna, Dimitar "Mitko Rusia" Stoyanov was shot while sitting in a cafe in Sofia's Mladost 1 district.
Stoyanov has been registered with the police for car thefts and robberies.
According to witnesses, there were two attackers, who escaped in a dark green Renault 19.
On the following day, shortly after noon in the Nadezhda 4 district in Sofia, Vladimir Vladimirov, allegedly involved in criminal activities, such as blackmailing car owners whose cars have been stolen, was seriously wounded.
According to children in the nearby schoolyard who witnessed the shooting, Vladimirov got into an argument with two young men, one of them pulled out a pistol and shot Vladimirov three times.
Meanwhile, on March 14 Borissov returned from a 10-day working visit to the US where he had meetings with representatives of the FBI, Drug Enforcement Agency, Secret Service and Diplomatic Service.
During his visit Borissov negotiated aid of $3 million for 2005 from the US law enforcement agencies.
After a meeting with Borissov, Secret Service chief W. Ralph Basham said that relations between the Bulgarian and the US services were exceptionally good.