About a month and a half of preparation went into the operation code-named The Killers, the arrests of a group of people alleged to be involved in a series of high-profile contract killings, according to Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov.

The operation was carried out on July 23, just a few days after the European Commission gave a nod to the Government’s political will to move against organised crime.

It fired the starting gun for a new round of lurid and detailed descriptions in Bulgaria’s mass-circulation media of the alleged doings of those in custody, with 24 Chassa adding the cherry on the top by claiming that one of those on whom there was a contract out was Borissov himself – a claim that a few days later had not specifically been officially rejected, beyond some media reports citing unnamed sources as pouring cold water on it, while the National Bodyguard Service chief Dimitar Dimitrov was quoted by Bulgarian National Radio as saying that the service had "no information" about such a plot. US services had tipped off their Bulgarian counterparts about the supposed plot against Borissov, 24 Chassa said.

Initially, about 20 people were arrested in the "Killers" operation. (The Bulgarian word "Килърите" was received from English in the past 20 years, a result of the series of organised crime hits in post-communist times. It has a close cousin in Russian, for the same reason.)

Of this total, five were formally charged, while 14 were being questioned as witnesses, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said.
 
Hit parade
The group allegedly was linked to at least two high-profile murders, with Borissov and Tsvetanov saying that further revelations about other murders were on the way, including about murders that had been planned but not carried out, with a hint that these killings had been forestalled by the arrests of the "Killers".

Of  "The Killers" the closest to a household name is Petar "The Chieftain" Stoyanov, president of the Bulgarian Sumo Federation. Reports that he had served in roles as an adviser to government, as an occasional consultant to Parliament’s committee on education, youth and sports, and to the President’s office brought adamant rejections from the latter.

Supposedly the ringleader, an allegation that Stoyanov rejects along with all claims of him being linked to any form of crime – media reports said that he had a criminal record for pimping and racketeering – Stoyanov was alleged to have been assisted in the group by Vassil "The Sneaker" Kostov, also known as Vasko Ketsa, Pesho Sumitsa – who reportedly has a criminal record for pimping and extortion – Metodi Ivanov and Georgi "Dachi" Petkov. The group was said to have been set up in 2008.

According to prosecutors, Petkov pulled the trigger in the murder of Yuri Galev, a controversial Samokov municipal councillor and former football club boss who was shot dead in June near the Rila village of Beli Iskur.

The group allegedly also was involved in the murder of businessman Roumen Rachev in Shoumen. Further, according to Borissov, the group was involved in a murder of a lawyer in Veliko Turnovo in March. The lawyer previously had been seriously assaulted and his car had been set on fire.

Tsvetanov told journalists that the group could be linked to a further six murders, apart from those of Galev and Rachev.

However, what remained unclear in the first week after the Killers operation was why Galev had been murdered. Any number of theories were offered, most including some form of competition in various illicit enterprises. At a news conference held by Borissov and Tsvetanov on July 24, the person who allegedly ordered the killing of Galev was named as Yanko "Tutsi" Popov, said to be closely linked to Bai Mile and structures connected to SIC, a security and insurance company that arose in Bulgaria’s post-communist environment.
 
Arms and the man
The Killers operation turned up semi-automatic weapons, explosives and large quantities of ammunition, aside from counterfeit currency. Ivanov, reportedly, has a previous conviction for illegal possession of explosives.

The finds, which included 4500 rounds of ammunition, prompted Borissov to call for tougher laws against illegal weapons possession.

"Why should anyone keep an assault rifle or a rocket launcher at home? To shoot sparrows? Then we talk of a crime only when this person shoots someone? Otherwise we shall wait for them to murder someone and only then punish them," Standart quoted Borissov as saying.
 
Strictly business
Apart from its public impact coming hard on the heels of the European Commission report – and thus giving Borissov and Tsvetanov a fresh chance to direct barbs at the judiciary whose performance had been described in that report as inadequate – the Killers operation also quickly brought the spotlight back to the performance and the budget of the Interior Ministry.

In the context of the economic crisis, there has been a running saga about how much Bulgaria spends on the Interior Ministry, along with a very public debate on how the ministry will be treated while other ministries and state agencies are being told to cut back on spending.

Tsvetanov, speaking at a discussion in Sofia on July 26, said that this year his ministry had solved 209 crimes and had 179 organised crime figures under surveillance. By the by, according to media reports from the meeting, there are precisely 1269 gangsters in Bulgaria.

Borissov, speaking against the background of the Killers operation, said that he was against cuts in the Interior Ministry. People at the ministry were working hard, were motivated, and putting the system under stress would have an adverse reaction, Borissov said.

On the judiciary, Borissov told the July 24 news conference that the head of the Supreme Court of Cassations, Lazar Gruev, should come forward to admit that those members of the bench who had allowed Ivanov to go free on probation in another case had been wrong.

Tsvetanov said that his ministry was working much better with the State Agency for National Security than it had been a year ago.

Speaking to daily Klassa, Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev said that there were still some problems in co-operation between his office and that of the Interior Ministry, including the large caseloads of investigating officers and the fact that the judiciary and law enforcement used different methods for calculating statistics, a discrepancy that Velchev said would be overcome by the end of 2010, enabling public disclosure about the number of organised crime groups that had been dismantled in Bulgaria.

Finally, there was another matter that captured the imagination of the media, apart from the supposed contract out on Borissov; the question of just how much it costs to commission a murder in Bulgaria. Borissov and Tsvetanov declined to be drawn on the question, with Tsvetanov at one point saying that it was "anyone’s guess". As a business enterprise, however, it appeared to have one major downside for those involved. According to law enforcers, it was routine practice for those who actually pulled the triggers to in turn be disposed of, a claim said to be a possible reason for the fact that some members of the group had not been found.