Murder near Sofia linked to loan shark debt: One of the perpetrators wanted the debtor to repay double the sum he borrowed

The court on January 9 remanded Petar Alexandrov and Alexander Kinov, who were accused of the murder of 49-year-old Kiril Rusev.

The victim supposedly owed a substantial sum of money to one of the accused, allegedly a loan shark.

Court remands undertaker and loan shark accused of murdering 49-year-old Kiril Rusev

A dispute over the amount to be repaid by Kiril Rusev is at the bottom of his murder. The suspects for the brutal crime – an undertaker and a loan shark (son of former finance minister Stoyan Alexandrov) are in custody.

In fact, at the basis of this crime, there was a conflict between the late former finance minister and the debtor. It arose in 2009 and was over the amount of money to be repaid. According to investigators, after the death of former minister, Stoyan Alexandrov, his son wanted Rusev to return more than 600,000 dollars to the family company, not 300,000 that had been lent to him as a loan.

All the family companies were registered at the address of the inherited house in the capital's residential district of Gorna Banya, in which the suspect Petar Alexandrov lived. The widow of the former finance minister, Nina Alexandrova, and their children, Mira and Petar Alexandrov, were partners in the companies. None of the family is here today.

According to the investigation, after the death of Stoyan Alexandrov, only his son Petar lived in the house, who has also taken over the operational management of the family business. It was here that Kiril Rusev arrived shortly after 14:30 on 4 January for another conversation about when and how much money he should pay back from the loan he took in 2008. Rusev was allegedly brought to the house by the undertaker Alexander Kinov.

Murder near Sofia: The perpetrators kidnapped and tortured the victim

Two handguns and three hunting rifles were found in the home of Petar Aleksnadrov, which were legally owned and stored, according to the rules, in a safe. The investigators found the contract according to which the company of the now former Finance Minister Stoyan Aleksandrov lent the murdered Kiril Rusev's company 306,000 US dollars. According to investigators, Rusev had used 200,000 BGN of this money, or half of the amount. But the claim to the victim was to pay back at that time more than 600,000 US dollars, because of the so-called "penalty interest".

The dispute over how much he took, how much he returned and how much more he has to return started at the end of 2009 between former minister Stoyan Alexandrov and Kiril Rusev and escalated to a sharp conflict between the two. In 2016, Rusev and several other businessmen who used Stoyan Alexandrov's financial services filed a report with the Prosecutor's office against the former finance minister.

Evidence was gathered that from 2002 to 2015 Alexandrov - senior had given more than 10 million BGN in loans to 61 legal entities and individuals with interest rates ranging from 14 to 18%. In 2018, Stoyan Alexandrov was indicted for lending without a license. The investigation continued without being brought to court until the end of August 2020, when it was terminated due to the death of the former finance minister.

A few months earlier, at the end of May, the anti-corruption commission filed a lawsuit in Sofia City Court against Stoyan Alexandrov, his wife Nina and their children for the forfeiture of assets worth BGN 11 million. For three and a half years there was no movement in this case. The loan sharking business was taken over by the son, Petar Alexandrov, who continued to demand from Kiril Rusev to repay the money as described in the 2008 agreement. There is data in the investigation that Rusev returned the amount he had borrowed and refused to pay the amount demanded from him on top.