Vasil Krumov Bozhkov (; born July 29, 1956) is a Bulgarian politician and a businessman, once considered the richest Bulgarian with a fortune estimated at between 1 and 3 billion

Bulgarian lev The ''lev'' (, plural: / , ; ISO 4217 code: BGN; numeric code: 975) is the currency of Bulgaria. In old Bulgarian, the word ''lev'' meant "lion"; the word "lion" in the modern language is ''lаv'' (; in Bulgarian: ). The lev is divided in 100 '' ...

s. Known by the nickname The Skull (Черепа, ''Cherepa''), in internal correspondence of the

US State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs o ...

he was described as "the most infamous

gangster A gangster (informally gangsta) is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''Organized crime, mob'' and the suffix ''wikt:-ster, -st ...

in Bulgaria." In January 2020, Bozhkov left Bulgaria and fled to

Dubai Dubai (Help:IPA/English, /duːˈbaɪ/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''doo-BYE''; Modern Standard Arabic, Modern Standard Arabic: ; Emirati Arabic, Emirati Arabic: , Romanization of Arabic, romanized: Help:IPA/English, /diˈbej/) is the Lis ...

to avoid arrest. He was charged with a number of crimes, including murder, money laundering, tax evasion, rape, and more.

Education

Bozhkov graduated from the National Mathematical High School in

Sofia Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain, in the western part of the country. The city is built west of the Is ...

. He has two higher educations – specialty "Applied Mathematics" at

Sofia University Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" () is a public university, public research university in Sofia, Bulgaria. It is the oldest institution of higher education in Bulgaria. Founded on 1 October 1888, the edifice of the university was constr ...

and "Labor Economics" at the

University of National and World Economy The University of National and World Economy () is a public research university in Sofia Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot o ...

Business career

Bozhkov started his business in 1989 near the Magura confectionery in Sofia, where currencies, antiques and weapons were illegally sold. He soon opened a chain of exchange offices. In 1991 he registered his main company Nove Holding, in which he is the largest shareholder and since 2005 – chairman of the board of directors. In 1991, Bozhkov became a partner with Iliya Pavlov and Mladen Mihalev-Majo in the gambling company IGM. He opened a casino in the Rila Hotel in Sofia. As of 2007, he co-owned the casinos at Radisson SAS and Hemus and the bingo halls. In 1994, Bozhkov opened the Bulgarian Commercial Industrial Bank (BTIB), which in 1996–1997 merged with Credit Group of Multigroup. In 2000, he bought the assets of the bankrupt First Private Bank. In 2006, Bozhkov bought the former HD Roads privatization fund through the stock exchange. The main

shareholder A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of corporate stock refers to an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the ...

in Holding Roads is ABV Engineering, which is owned by Nove International (a subsidiary of Nove Holding). Through Holding Roads, Bozhkov bought a large part of the regional state road construction companies, which were previously owned by the General Directorate of Roads. At the end of 2007, when allocating the surplus of the national budget and expressing doubts about the objectivity of the distribution, Vasil Bozhkov's companies took 47.7 million levs from the money allocated under the Republican Road Infrastructure Fund. In 2006, the Polish magazine

Wprost ''Wprost'' (, meaning "Directly") is a Polish weekly news magazine published in Poznań, Poland.

The Collection

In 2004 Bozhkov established the Thrace Foundation with the official goal of "organizing and supporting the search for and preservation of cultural values, part of the Bulgarian and world cultural and historical heritage". Its executive director is Kiril Hristoskov. The foundation is mainly engaged in exhibiting and promulgating antiquities owned by Bozhkov, but has also financed archaeological excavations in 2005–2007. Bozhkov owns a collection of antiques, which historian

Bozhidar Dimitrov Bozhidar Dimitrov Stoyanov (, 3 December 1945 – 1 July 2018) was a Bulgarian historian, politician, and polemicist in the sphere of Medieval Bulgarian history, the Ottoman rule of Bulgaria and the Macedonian Question. He was director of the ...

claims were exported from Bulgaria before 1911 and purchased abroad. In 2005 the collection was described by

Ivan Marazov Ivan Rousev Marazov () born 15 March 1942 in Pirne, near Aytos, is a Bulgarian artist, culturologist, thracologist and politician. In 1996, Marazov was a candidate to become President of Bulgaria for the Bulgarian Socialist Party (with Irina ...

. Part of it is exhibited in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

(2006) and Moscow (2009). In 2011 the National History Museum hosted the exhibition "Thrace and the Ancient World XV-I century BC. – Vasil Bozhkov Collection ", containing 230 monuments of Thracian and Greco-Roman art. As a collector, Bozhkov declared himself against the Cultural Heritage Act adopted in 2009.

Participation in the sports industry

In 1993, Bozhkov founded the sports betting agency

Eurofootball Eurofootball (, ''Evrofutbol'') is the first private Bulgarian bookmaker, as well as the country's largest. It began operating on 6 October 1990 and was officially registered in 1993, officially receiving a license on 20 October the same year. Th ...

, which since 2002 has included Greek billionaire

Sokratis Kokkalis Sokratis Kokkalis (Greek: Σωκράτης Κόκκαλης; born 1939) is a Greek businessman, founder and principal shareholder of Intracom Holdings. He was the son of Petros Kokkalis and spent his youth as a political refugee in East Ge ...

as a partner with his company

Intralot INTRALOT is a Greek company that supplies integrated gambling, transaction processing systems, game content, sports betting management and interactive gambling services, to state-licensed gambling organizations worldwide. The company acts both as ...

. In 2000 Bozhkov was elected chairman of the

Bulgarian Shooting Federation Bulgarian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Bulgaria * Bulgarians, a South Slavic ethnic group * Bulgarian language, a Slavic language * Bulgarian alphabet * A citizen of Bulgaria, see Demographics of Bulgaria * Bul ...

, and in 2003 he headed the

Bulgarian Chess Federation The Bulgarian Chess Federation (, abbreviated БФШ/BCF) is the former governing chess organisation in Bulgaria and the one that was a member of FIDE and European Chess Union, ECU until 2016. BCF was formed in 2001 and was effectively a re-cons ...

. In 1999 he bought PFC CSKA AD, which he subsequently sold to

Pramod Mittal Pramod Mittal (born 1 September 1956) is an Indian businessman who was the chairman of Ispat Industries Limited (now JSW Ispat Steel). Life and career He was married to Sangeeta Mittal. The Couple has three children; Vartika, Shrishti and Di ...

(4 December 2006). In 2009, he declared

footballers A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...

"modern

gladiators A gladiator ( , ) was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gladiators were volunteers who risked their ...

". In February 2019, with a special press release from the company "Nove Holding" Bozhkov announced that he became the owner of

PFC Levski Sofia PFC Levski Sofia () is a Bulgarian professional association football club based in Sofia, which competes in the First Professional Football League (Bulgaria), First League, the top division of the Bulgarian football league system. The club was ...

and took care of its management, financing and long-term development. The businessman claims that for a period of one year he has invested nearly 25 million

s in the club. On 2 June 2020, he transferred the entire stake to football legend

Nasko Sirakov Nasko Petkov Sirakov (; born 26 April 1962) is a Bulgarian retired professional Association football, footballer who played mainly as a forward (association football), striker. He is the major shareholder of PFC Levski Sofia, Levski Sofia. Par ...

Controversies

Abuses of the legal system

The financial circles and the

press Press may refer to: Media * Publisher * News media * Printing press, commonly called "the press" * Press TV, an Iranian television network Newspapers United States * ''The Press'', a former name of ''The Press-Enterprise'', Riverside, California ...

have expressed doubts that Bozhkov is manipulating the minority owners by draining Nove Holding by taking out non-public subsidiaries and bonuses for himself. On 5 January 2009, the General Meeting of Holding Roads voted for Bozhkov an additional remuneration of 3.84 million levs. The Financial Supervision Commission does not report any irregularities.

Links to organized crime

Bozhkov is suspected of having close ties to the

SIC The Latin adverb ''sic'' (; ''thus'', ''so'', and ''in this manner'') inserted after a quotation indicates that the quoted matter has been transcribed or translated as found in the source text, including erroneous, archaic, or unusual spelling ...

group, a Bulgarian organized crime group. He is considered a co-owner of the Bull Ins insurance company, although the nominal owners are offshore companies and the connection is unprovable. Bull Ins took over the SIC's "insurance" structures after they did not receive a license in 1998. Bozhkov's name is mentioned in the

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is a non-profit media organisation and publisher of leaked documents. It is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded in 2006 by ...

correspondence leaked to the US Embassy in Bulgaria. Together with Todor Batkov,

Grisha Ganchev Grisha Ganchev () (born 10 December 1962) is a Bulgarian Business oligarch, businessman and Business oligarch, oligarch who is the owner of a multitude of businesses in Bulgaria, such as the petroleum, oil distributing company Petrol AD which has ...

and the brothers Krasimir and Nikolay Marinov, leaders of the

crime group, Bozhkov was given as an example "of some of the most famous connections" of Bulgarian business with

organized crime Organized crime is a category of transnational organized crime, transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a f ...

. Again, according to information leaked through WikiLeaks, in 2009 the acting US ambassador to Bulgaria John Ordwick in a diplomatic letter identified Bozhkov as "the most infamous gangster" and found that Bozhkov was still active "in money laundering, in privatization fraud, threats, extortion, racketeering and the illegal trade in antiques."

Suspected criminal activity

20 charges were filed against Bozhkov, in three cases, including extortion and attempted bribery. Bozhkov had been living in self imposed exile in Dubai since January 2020, until he returned to Bulgaria in August 2023, whereupon he was detained. In March, 2022 Tsvetomir Naydenov and Boyan Naydenov, former business partners of Bozhkov, mentioned in an interview that he had confessed to them that he had ordered the murder of Bulgarian businessman Manol Velev, who was shot in 2006 and remained in a coma until his death on March 25, 2022.

Boyko Borissov

Bozhkov asked in 2023 to return to Bulgaria as a protected witness against ex-prime minister Boyko Borissov, who he says received money from Bozhkov.

Sanctions

On 10 February 2023 the United Kingdom HM Treasury imposed sanctions, considering Bozhkov an involved person under the Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions Regulations, involved in serious corruption.

Politics

On 8 June 2020, Bozhkov announced from his rented apartment in Dubai that he had plans to enter politics after returning to Bulgaria. He commented: “We need a new political project. Power must be seized from Borisov." He also created a Facebook poll asking his followers whether they would follow him in a political project. This led to the creation of a new party called Bulgarian Summer, registered on 4 January 2021. It calls for the implementation of a

Direct democracy Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the Election#Electorate, electorate directly decides on policy initiatives, without legislator, elected representatives as proxies, as opposed to the representative democracy m ...

. Its slogan is “Justice for all”. The party received 94,515 votes (2.91%, near the 4% threshold) in the

April 2021 Bulgarian parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 4 April 2021 at the end of the term of the National Assembly (Bulgaria), National Assembly 2017 Bulgarian parliamentary election, elected in 2017. Parties in the governing coalition led by Boyko B ...

, which were inconclusive and led to a do-over in July, during which his party received about 1.80%. While under house arrest, on 21 February 2024, Vasil Bozhkov announced the formation of a new political party which was to be called "CENTER". He was chosen as the list-leader for the coalition "Center" for the 2024 European Parliament Elections.

Personal life

Vasil Bozhkov married Maya Angelova Bozhkova in 1980, they had a single child, born in 1986, named Anton Bozhkov. According to many reports, Maya has been living in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

for years. For a long period, their son Anton also lived in the UK where he graduated from the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

and the

Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...

. Anton Bozhkov is married to Iva Sofianska, daughter of former

's three-term mayor and former interim Prime Minister of Bulgaria. Anton and Iva gave Vasil Bozhkov 3 grandchildren. Vasil Bozhkov is currently in a relationship with Elena Dineva, who is 13 years younger than him. Dineva is well-known among the Bulgarian elite.

In fiction

The prototype of one of the characters in Lyudmila Filipova's first novel – "Anatomy of Illusions", Boris Bukov, is Vasil Bozhkov.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bozhkov, Vasil Bulgarian criminals Bulgarian businesspeople 1956 births 21st-century Bulgarian criminals People from Velingrad Sofia University alumni University of National and World Economy alumni Living people Bulgarian billionaires