A former company of Asen Vasilev has blocked accounts due to a claim by an American citizen for BGN 5 million, but managed to save its properties with a favorable deal. The buyer is Stanislava Arnaudova’s company, known as the “Queen of Vignettes” – a privileged intermediary, collecting 7% of each vignette. Despite the requests to change this percentage, so far there has been no change and the commissions are going their way. In addition, Arnaudova, in her personal capacity, also acquired Daniel Laurer’s property for a record price, which leads to the hypothesis of consideration.
On December 29, 2023, Mario Ivanov Sotirov, manager and current owner of “STV Consulting” EOOD, as well as a close associate of “Prodluzhvame Promyanata”, and Minister Vassilev, submitted to the Commercial Register the application entered the day before to the court to declare the company in bankruptcy, writes Bird.bg.
The reason for this is that on 17.11.2023 the American citizen Sebastian Bretschneider received a security order from the court for over BGN 5 million (5 013 317.86), issued in his name, and imposed a seizure on the company’s accounts.
However, Bretschneider’s claims to other assets of the firm were predictably neutralized two months earlier. On September 7, 2023, STV Consulting is selling the yard and five properties in a building at 3 Chataldzha Street in Sofia for nearly BGN 3 million. And three months later it went bankrupt.
The first symptoms of problems for “STV Consulting” appeared in the summer of 2023, when the company was briefly in debt to the National Revenue Agency, and was initially registered with nearly BGN 30 thousand in liabilities to the treasury. After we announced the liability in August, the company quickly paid off the balance of almost BGN 6,000.
The “saviour” of “STV Consulting” is the well-known “Queen of vignettes” Stanislava Arnaudova. She paid over BGN 3 million for the so-called “office of change” in Chataldzha. However, the money evaporates in an unknown direction and Sebastian Bretschneider manages to block only BGN 561,790.
Mario Sotirov is a long-time manager of Asen Vasilev’s companies, as well as of “STV Holdings” EOOD and “STV Bulgaria” EOOD – both owned by the offshore company “Akselbert” (Akselbert Ltd), registered in the British Virgin Islands. As we revealed in our publication previously, the offshore company is still owned by Finance Minister Asen Vaskov Vassilev, according to information in the Commercial Register.In addition, the two companies have not submitted financial statements for the past three years and are in violation.
Stanislava Arnaudova is the majority owner in the company “Intelligent Traffic Systems” JSC, which received in a dubious way intermediary rights to sell vignettes of the BGToll system with a commission of 7%. In the public space, she is associated with Boris Markov, former chairman of the Union of Workers’ Compensation and an employee of the Austrian Kaptsch , which built the toll system with a scandalous contract and continues to maintain it for millions more.
Laurer deal with BGN 1.5 million profit
However, that is not all. Arnaudova also made a deal with Daniel Laurer, MP from “PPDB” and former minister from “We continue the change” in Kiril Petkov’s office. He also has properties in this building at 3 Chataldzha Street in Sofia. Laurer sold them on the same day as STV Holdings, but to Arnaudova in a personal capacity. He sells them at a huge profit.
Laurer’s property was bought by “STV Consulting” for BGN 351,950 a little over a year ago. At that time, he was the Minister of Innovation from Change. On September 7, 2023, Laurer sold the property for BGN 1,858,038.50.
Daniel Laurer bought the property from “STV Consulting” in the building that became known as the “Office of Change” at 3 “Chatalja” Street in April 2022, while he was a minister. The property was declared on the last two lines (2 x 175,975 BGN. ) in the property table in his final declaration.
The obscene commissions of the middlemen in the trade of state vignettes became the reason for parliamentary questions to the acting Minister of Regional Development Ivan Shishkov, who revealed that they received over 110 million BGN profit from the resale of vignettes. There were plans to drop their commission from 7% to 3%, but that fell through. And Arnaudova’s multimillion-dollar deals with leading politicians from Change are an indicator that no change is imminent for this lucrative business.
The innovative approach of the politicians from Change, compared to their coalition partners from GERB, is also impressive. While at GERB we had a well-worked scheme to buy cheap properties at a tax assessment in order not to show undeclared income, at Change we have property sales at record prices, which smacks of consideration for corrupt services. In both cases, the abuse is visible like a louse on the forehead, but very difficult to prove.
2024-01-16 20:38:22
