A lawyer’s assistant arrested for using forged wills to acquire properties

A lawyer’s assistant was detained for unlawfully acquiring eight apartments in Sofia. Forged documents were used for the fraud, the police said on January 18. The heirs of deceased elderly people were harmed. An impressive quantity of weapons, including assault rifles and machine guns, was also found at an address searched during the investigation.

The detainee is 57 years old. His property in the village of Ivanyane (near Sofia), at which address the law firm was registered, was also searched. This is where, according to prosecutors, the weapons were found. The charges against him are two - for using false documents and for possessing weapons and ammunition without a permit. BNT contacted the lawyer with whom the detainee Ivo Stefanov works. He denied that his assistant was involved in any fraudulent schemes and said he had no knowledge of him having an impressive amount of weapons. In addition to the assistant, three other people were initially detained but were subsequently questioned as witnesses and released.

A well-practiced scheme using fake wills to acquire mouth-watering properties in the capital. An official may also have had a hand in it.

"What's striking in this case is that the use of fake private documents has actually harmed the heirs of elderly people who have died, enabling the author of the crime to illegally acquire expensive properties," said Nikolai Stanchev, head of the Investigation Department at Sofia directorate of the Ministry of Interior.

According to investigators, the lawyer's assistant worked through fronts who acquired the properties with fake wills. They then transferred the property to him in exchange.

"Motor vehicles, as well as properties located outside the territory of the city of Sofia and, more recently, ideal shares from such properties," said inspector Penev, Sofia Directorate of the Ministry of Interior.

The Prosecutor's office said two such acts were committed within a month last summer. According to BNT sources, the services of two different notaries were used. The detained Ivo Stefanov works in the office of lawyer Bozhidar Kolev.

"He is definitely not involved in schemes with any properties. Pure blackmail under the pretext that some crime is being investigated, which they have completely made up. And they have seized the cash that is there, which we hold in trust for our clients. A very significant amount," said lawyer Bozhidar Kolev.

According to the Prosecutor's office, 13 pistols, a revolver handgun, two assault rifles, a shotgun, two machine guns and cartridges were found during searches at the address in the village of Ivanyane. Lawyer Kolev explained that Ivanyane was the home of his assistant, where a law office was registered.

"It is, according to the law, absolutely inviolable and absolutely no one can enter it except with a special permission. We are not a terrorist organisation, we are a law firm. We don't have any such weapons, categorically. It is known to me that my assistant Ivo Stefanov had a legally registered gun," said Bozhidar Kolev.

The Prosecutor's office will ask for Stefanov's remand.