2024-07-30 18:05:10
- He has not lived in Bulgaria for 6 years. He will be in prison for 6 years and 6 months – they did not prove that he was the leader of a drug trafficking gang
- The cargo of 50 bales of cocaine was transferred to the open sea, then hidden in a double-bottomed car in a villa in Loule
Former weightlifter Galabin Boevski is in a Portuguese prison after he was caught in October 2020 trying to transport more than 1 ton of cocaine worth $50 million. The verdict of the former star in weightlifting was only found out now after Ognyan Georgiev’s “Sports Jungle” podcast. In his video, the YouTuber explains that he also received an official response from the Portuguese authorities, to whom he wrote for confirmation.
In fact, Boevski has not been in the spotlight for a long time, as he has not lived in Bulgaria for years.
He is now jailed in Portugal thanks to the testimony of 11 police officers, as well as messages on his phone.
According to case materials, nearly 90 percent of the evidence against him was confirmed after authorities unlocked his mobile device. In it they found communication about the transportation of drugs – 1000 kg of cocaine and 3600 kg of marijuana.
Boevski, who has been living in Portugal for 6 years, sent them to secret agent Filtro, with whom he communicated in the months before he was detained. Filtro was an undercover cop and managed to gain the former weightlifter’s trust. Already at one of their first meetings, it became clear that the goods of 50 bales of cocaine must be transferred to the open sea – from one boat to another, and then driven to a villa by car.
According to materials in the case, the vessel that transported the drugs was a sailboat named “Bonzar”. It was run by a Brit named Christopher Dopson. The drugs were then transferred to a boat headed for the Algarve coast. There, they transferred the cocaine to a double-bottomed car, which traveled to a villa in Lule. One remained to guard the drugs, and in the neighboring town of Albufeira, the agent met Boevski. Then he returned to the villa with a Montenegrin named Mladen. The arrests also began.
The seized cocaine turned out to be nearly 94% pure. The court gave Boevski 6 years and 6 months in prison, accepting that there was not enough evidence that there was an organized criminal group. He also failed to prove that the weightlifter had a leading role in the traffic. 11 officers of the special police unit for serious crimes in Portugal “Police Judiciary” testified against him.
However, all the detainees deny that they knew about the cocaine. Boevski does it too – he claims before the magistrates that he was the gang’s translator. The Olympic weightlifting champion from Sydney 2000 said that he was not the organizer and leader of the group, but was only taken as a translator because he knew languages. He spoke perfect Portuguese – the only official one in several countries, including Portugal and Brazil. Of those arrested, only the Briton who ran the first boat admitted to transporting cocaine.
The action against Boevski and the other three foreigners arrested with him lasted several months, the authorities later claimed at a briefing.
This is not Boevski’s first run-in with international services. 13 years ago, he was arrested for drug trafficking at Garullos Airport in Sao Paulo (Brazil). Then, in his luggage and that of his daughter Sarah, who was traveling to participate in a tennis tournament, they found 9 kg of cocaine. Before the court at the time, he claimed that he did not know about the drugs in the suitcases that he bought in Sao Paulo the day before his departure for Bulgaria.
The court gave him 9 years and 4 months, but after 2 years behind bars in “Itai” prison, he was released. The weightlifter came out because of the expulsão procedure, with which Brazilian law allows foreign criminals detained in the country to be released early. One of the conditions they have to meet is good behavior as well as never setting foot in Brazil again. Years ago, the government there introduced the expúlcao, also with the goal of getting rid of the maintenance payments to recidivists while they serve their sentence.
“If you think I can influence the Brazilian judicial system, then you consider me a very serious person. There is nothing different from what you know than what I have. On March 13 (2013 – note ed.) I received the documents for “expulsao” and 6 months later I am here. I don’t see why everyone says that it is so surprising that I am here or that something happened,” said Boevski. He clarified that he does not understand laws and only knows that he is free.
In 2008, Boevski’s family was in the news again. Then his son Paul self-harmed with a gas gun in the school yard. At that time, Boevski was a municipal councilor from GERB in Sofia. After the incident, he resigned and left the list, and his membership in the party was terminated.
At the beginning of April 2019, the prosecutor’s office charged Paul Boevski with possession and distribution of narcotic substances – 2.31 grams of marijuana, 17.41 grams of amphetamine and 27.01 grams of cocaine. The 26-year-old admitted his guilt and received a three-year suspended sentence with a five-year probationary period, as well as a fine of BGN 2,500.
3 times European, 2 times world, once Olympic
Galabin Boevski is Bulgaria’s penultimate Olympic champion in weightlifting. He won gold in 2000 in Sydney. After him, four years later, only Milen Dobrev did it in Athens, who died in 2015 from a heart attack at his home. Boevski was born on December 19, 1974 in the town of Knezha. He is a graduate of the “Georgi Benkovski” sports school in Pleven. His first weightlifting coach was Stefcho Malkodanski. He competes in the 69 kg category. Three-time European champion (1999, 2002 and 2003), two-time world champion and, most importantly, an Olympic gold medalist from the 2000 Sydney Games.