Dirty money and culture: Directors of theatres in Razgrad and Smolyan charged with embezzlement

Nearly three million BGN were siphoned off from the theatres in the cities of Razgrad and Smolyan. Five people have already been charged in Razgrad. On October 3, the director of the theatre in Smolyan, Rumen Bechev, was also charged with embezzlement in particularly large amounts. Rumen Bechev has been released on cash bail due to health issues. Even before he was interviewed, the Ministry of Culture said that their inspection had found serious violations in the theatre in Smolyan, which used the same siphoning-off scheme as the one the theatre in Razgrad applied through fictitious appointments of employees. Prime Minister Glavchev ordered an inspection of the officials who control the activities of state-owned cultural institutions in the country because of the flagrant financial abuse in the two theatres.

In the theatre in Smolyan, the embezzlement of large sums from the budget was done through a scheme identical to the one in the theatre in Razgrad - by appointing fictitious employees who, according to contracts, received significantly higher salaries than regular artists, as well as huge sums as additional material stimulation. The contracts were concluded through companies owned by the same person - Petko Piskov, considered to be the "mastermind" of the criminal scheme.

"The money paid to these fictitious employees of the theatre in Smolyan is twice less than the amounts paid to the employees in Razgrad, where they were paid about 25,000 BGN additional material stimulation, and in Smolyan it was between 13 and 14,000 BGN per person," explained Galin Gavrailov, supervising prosecutor in the District Prosecutor's Office - Plovdiv.

In Smolyan, 41 people have been fictitiously appointed. The same was number of people in the theatre in Razgrad, where 1.7m BGN has been found to have been siphoned off so far. There are also employees on part time contracts.

All the people were hired to be "promoters", to present the activities of the respective cultural institution to the public, but these are people who have nothing to do with the arts, not educated in this field, people who maybe go to the theatre for entertainment or to the opera or to some philharmonic orchestra concert, if they go at all," explained Galin Gavrailov, supervising prosecutor, Plovdiv District Prosecutor's Office.

Thus, through contracts with bartenders, labourers, builders and electricians, mostly from Sofia and Pernik, the Rhodope theatre has siphoned off nearly 580,000 BGN.

"So far we have identified and seized about 250,000 BGN from the embezzled funds as material evidence in the case," said Galin Gavrailov."

The Rhodope Theatre is also being investigated in another case, initiated by the Smolyan District Prosecutor's Office on 26 September, 2024. It is also for concluding an unfavourable deal - a contract for promotion of the theatre's activities, but with another company registered in Sofia.

"The pre-trial proceedings were initiated on the basis of a report of the Public Financial Inspection Agency. Actions are to be carried out in the investigation to establish whether it is indeed an unfavourable deal," said Stancho Stanchev, spokesman for the Smolyan District Prosecutor's Office.

After a meeting with the Minister of Culture, caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev ordered the Inspectorate of the Council of Ministers to immediately inspect the activities of officials who control the activities of state cultural institutes, for which information has emerged about flagrant financial abuse. In the words of Minister Todorov, the legal framework for the financing of cultural institutions in Bulgaria provides loopholes for such abuses.

"I don't think this problem will be in the two theatres only, at least from the checks we are doing. + The control should be by the Ministry of Culture, but the law with its change in 2013 gives exclusive powers and autonomy to the second level spending units, that is the cultural institutes and their heads, so the Ministry of Culture can only see when something is happening and it does not always see it at the time it is happening. However, I believe that after the changes we are planning to make to the law, control will return to where it belongs," Minister Todorov said.

BNT has learned that the Economic Police has requested documents from the Ministry of Culture in which its structure is described. Through them, as well as through job descriptions, which are also among the requested documents, it will be checked who is subordinate to whom and who actually approved the payment of the huge funds requested by the theatres.

The caretaker Prime Minister, after a meeting with the caretaker Minister of Culture, ordered the Inspectorate of the Council of Ministers to immediately check the activities of the officials who control the activities of the state-owned theatres, about which information emerged about a flagrant financial abuse of public funds.