Roumen Petkov's worst mistake as interior minister was to appoint Iliya Iliev as the Ministry’s chief secretary and Vanyo Tanov as head of the Ministry’s Chief directorate for combating organised crime. 

Petkov, who on April 24 2008 presented Mihail Mikov as his successor to top Ministry’s officials, made this confession himself. “I want to apologise for the mistakes I have made, the worst of which was appointing Iliev and Tanov,” Petkov said according to the Ministry’s website. “Their appointment was an unforgivable mistake with which I misled the leadership of the state. I assume full responsibility for that,” Petkov said. Tanov resigned from his position in the middle of 2007. Iliev followed him in December 2007. Both cited personal reasons for their resignations.

Petkov was forced to resign on April 13 after immense public pressure prompted by his admission that he had held meetings with people under police investigation, supposedly for the benefit of the Ministry and the state.

Petkov admitted to having held the meetings after Tanov was questioned by Parliament’s committee on internal order and public security. During an investigation carried out towards the end of 2006, Petkov was caught conducting meetings with two controversial businessmen known as the Galevi brothers. 

When Iliev resigned in 2007 he also said that he has been misled into approving a police operation in contradiction of the Ministry’s internal regulations. Later, Iliev said that the operation involved issuing a Bulgarian passport to Montenegro-born alleged drug boss Budimir Kujovic.

On January 1 2008 Iliev said that in order for the police to seize four tons of drugs he had been asked to approve the issue of a Bulgarian passport to Kujovic as part of a plan worked out by police in the town of Razgrad. The plan was to let Kujovic into Bulgaria and later intercept the drugs and Kujovic himself. Iliev did not fulfil his legal obligation to inform Interior Minister Roumen Petkov about the operation. The failure of the operation led to Iliev accepting responsibility and resigning, Iliev told media.

Iliev is currently under house arrest and the subject of a probe for leaking information from the ministry.