Bulgarian authorities seized financial operations worth 1.6 million leva, 25 people are in the process of being prosecuted and 15 had already been sentences for money laundering, Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA) director Vassil Kirov said at the forum Bulgaria's progress towards its recognition as a European state of law on November 13 2007.

Given the fact that the first convictions for money laundering were from 2006 and new there were already 15 sentences, this was “indicative of the progress”, Kirov said.

“The question is not to find a famous person to convict just to proof that we do our work,” he said.

Bulgarian banking sector showed high level of resiliency to money laundering. “Our job is to maintain and raise that level,” Kirov said. FIA encouraged banks to implement software that would automatically detect transactions of possibly ‘dirty money’.

Most of the FIA investigated cases were related to non-Bulgarian organised crime and the money transactions were not completed through the Bulgarian banking sector, Kirov said.

Non-banking sector was more risky, but transactions in this sector concerned smaller amounts of money.

Bulgarian money launderers followed practises of foreign money launderers and less money was laundered in Bulgaria than in the UK, the US or Germany, because Bulgaria was not a financial centre, Kirov said.

According to Kirov, construction was among the sectors where suspicious capital was invested and FIA was keeping a close eye on the sector. Investments in hotels were also being monitored, some of the cases were already sent to the judicial bodies.

FIA and the National Institute of Justice should continue and extend the training of prosecutors and judges in money laundering investigation, Kirov said.

There were misunderstandings in the way evidence should be collected so that money laundering could be proven. “The traditional measures just don’t do,” he said.