The Sofia City Court allowed the prosecutor's office to issue a European arrest warrant for Tsvetan Vasilev for two crimes under Article 253 of the Criminal Code - money laundering.
The court ruled that there was no real danger Vasilev would commit a crime, but there was a possibility he could abscond. In addition, he was charged with serious intentional crimes punishable by imprisonment from 5 to 15 years. The ruling can be appealed to the Court of Appeal in Sofia within three days.
Tsvetan Vasilev is on trial along with several other people for the bankruptcy of CCB. The case has been ongoing for several years. In July 2014, the banker was indicted for embezzlement of a particularly large amount in connection with the bankruptcy of Corporate Commercial Bank (CCB).
He was subsequently charged with over 100 offences. The charges were brought in absentia, as Vasilev managed to leave the country and has since been in Serbia, where he was granted political asylum. A European arrest warrant was also issued and the banker was declared wanted in the Schengen Information System.
In 2022, Vasilev's lawyer Konstantin Simeonov announced that a committee at Interpol had examined his complaint and found that the banker's wanted status was for political reasons. According to him, the International Criminal Police Organisation decided to delete all data in its system related to Vasilev, as the case no longer met Interpol's requirements. The same year, the Court of Appeal in Belgrade finally rejected the request of the authorities in Sofia for the extradition of Tsvetan Vasilev from Serbia. And in April 2023, it became clear that Interpol was again looking for the former majority owner of the Corporate Commercial Bank (CCB). /BGNES
