Bulgaria: former minister sanctioned in US for gambling corruption

Vladislav Goranov denies being responsible for corruption at Bulgaria’s State Gambling Commission.

Bulgaria.- The former finance minister Vladislav Goranov has defended his actions after he was sanctioned in the US under the Magnitsky Act. Goranov was added to the US Treasury’s list of sanctioned individuals for allegedly being part of a corruption scheme that saw officials take funds from gambling operators in exchange for favourable legislation.

However, while Goranov has accepted that the case involved failings at the Finance Ministry, he says he had no personal involvement in the State Gambling Commission and that the issue predated his arrival in office. On the contrary, he claims he identified problems at the Gambling Commission, which led to the intervention of the National Revenue Agency.

According to local media, Goranov said: “The main accusation that I changed the legislation is factually incorrect. I think our partners have been misled. The issue of the gambling debacle is a sore subject for me. I believe that the Gambling Commission did not read the law correctly and was misled by gambling organisers.”

The Magnitsky Act was passed by the US Congress in 2012, initially with the intention of punishing Russian officials responsible for the death of tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in 2009.

In November, Bulgaria’s Supreme Administrative Court declared null and void a decree that held the former gambling operator Eurofootball responsible for a debt of BGN 329m ($168.1m). Bulgaria’s State Gambling Commission issued the decree ordering the former gambling operator to pay unpaid taxes and interest to the state in February 2020.

The tax case was the largest involving a company that belonged to the fallen gambling mogul Vasil Bojkov. The court ruled that the chair of the State Gambling Commission was an incompetent authority to issue the decree.