Alleged Bulgarian gang boss arrested

BULGARIAN POLICE have arrested an alleged gangland kingpin over the murder this week of controversial radio presenter Bobi Tsankov, as the country’s new government seeks to convince the European Union that it is serious about fighting organised crime and corruption.

Krasimir “The Big Margin” Marinov is being questioned over the murder, in which Tsankov (30) was shot dead in central Sofia.

Police are searching for Nikolai “The Little Margin” Marinov – the arrested man’s brother – and for at least two gunmen who fled on foot after killing Tsankov and badly injuring two men who were with him.

“Krasimir Marinov, in complicity with his brother, has been accused of inciting in the period from November to January 5th this year an unknown person to deliberately kill Boris Tsankov,” the Bulgarian prosecutor’s office said.

The Marinovs’ lawyer denies their involvement in the killing, which was the latest of more than 150 gangland murders to blight Bulgaria since 2001.

In that time, the police and courts have sent only one crime boss to jail, while no senior official has been convicted for the flagrant graft that prompted the EU to suspend more than €200 million of aid to Sofia in 2008.

Local media report that Tsankov feared for his life after publishing tales of Bulgaria's underworld in his book The Secrets of the Mobsters, which sealed his own reputation as a shady character who was well connected with dangerous gangsters. He survived previous bomb attacks in Sofia and had recently complained to police about receiving death threats.

While journalists’ groups have expressed outrage at his death and called it a challenge to free media in Bulgaria, many of Tsankov’s compatriots remember him as a dubious scandal-monger.

“He has been the subject of investigations rather than being an investigative journalist himself,” said interior minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov.

Bulgarian newspapers say Tsankov had several convictions, most notably a suspended sentence for swindling large sums out of firms which paid for radio adverts that were never broadcast.

He was reputedly close to notorious drug baron Anton “The Beak” Miltenov, who gave him an entry into the criminal underworld that helped him write his book.

Miltenov was shot dead in 2005, and rumours were swirling in Sofia that Tsankov’s next book would reveal secrets about several gang murders and links between top politicians and crime bosses.