2024-09-29 09:10:30
Nikola Nikolov, better known by his nickname Pascal, was arrested in Serbia on Friday. He has been considered the number one smuggler in Bulgaria for decades.
On September 27, during a joint action of the Serbian and Bulgarian special services, Nikola Nikolov-Paskal, wanted with a European Arrest Warrant, was detained.
He was taken into custody today and will be handed over for extradition.
He was talked about in April this year, when the affair with “Customs” happened. According to it, Stefan Dimitrov is accused of participating in a criminal group together with his father Marin Dimitrov, the former director of the Customs Agency Petya Bankova, the former chief secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Zhivko Kotsev, Petar Subev from the Border Police and Nikola Nikolov, known under the pseudonym Pascal. However, he was not found in the country and was declared wanted.
According to the charges, all are participants in an organized criminal group for smuggling cigarettes across the border and for official crimes. Pascal was informed about the investigation, which is being conducted in our country, because his lawyers informed him. After the arrests at the beginning of April, the prosecutor’s office presented evidence that Pascal traveled with Stefan Dimitrov across the border between Bulgaria and Romania, and a little later the police there seized a cache of cigarettes. According to the prosecutor’s office, Petya Bankova and Zhivko Kotsev used their high positions to clear inconvenient officials in customs and the Ministry of the Interior, as well as to export information to Pascal through Stefan Dimitrov.
Pascal was never accused or tried. That is why his name is not known to the general audience. It was lit up in 2015, when a high-ranking source from the “Customs” Agency told “168 Chasa” that Pascal had damaged the state with billions. His profit was from smuggled cigarettes – an activity he has been engaged in with impunity for the past 25 years. Experts commented at the time that in just one month he passed through the Kapitan Andreevo border crossing about BGN 130 million worth of goods. Out of BGN 17,000 per month, the losses for the state from unpaid customs duties and VAT were over BGN 30 million, and the millionaire customs officers at the checkpoint collected BGN 100,000 from each truck.
His full name is Nikola Dimitrov Nikolov. He was born on May 8, 1961 in Dimitrovgrad. His official address was in Haskovo, at least it was like that 9 years ago. However, his weakness was an area 28 km from Kavala, where he spent most of his time.
Nikolov was an agent of the services. He signed a declaration of cooperation even at the time of State Security. “Worked” either for counterintelligence, or less likely – for the economic police. Because of his contacts, he remained in the shadows. Suffered only one serious blow. In 1998, counterintelligence, then led by Gen. Atanas Atanasov, conducts an operation during which they detain three cartons of contraband cigarettes that entered from Greece through the Novo Selo border crossing.