ABSTRACT
Over the past decade, the concept of ‘organised crime’ in Bulgaria has become a universal metaphor used to explain the politics–business nexus, as well as economic and corporate crime. Similarly, public sector corruption is used to describe anything from the underdeveloped and ineffective state institutions to the constant political scandals in the country. The complexity of this task lies in the fact that the scale of corruption that has permeated public and private sectors in Bulgaria since the early 1990s is so vast, that an exhaustive account implies a much more comprehensive analysis than the present chapter aims to do. It is not an overstatement that any ministry has been targeted in one way or another by organised criminals: from the Ministry of Culture (in relation to the trafficking of antiquities), to the Ministry of Environment and Water (in relation to various concessions and construction projects), the Ministry of Agriculture (fraudulent land swaps, EU subsidy fraud), the Ministry of Economy/Energy (rigged privatisations), or the National Revenue Agency (VAT or other tax frauds). As any ministry controlled some sort of state assets at the end of the 1990s (including various real estates), or tendered public contracts, criminals used corruption to take over these resources. The present chapter focuses on four key aspects in which criminals use corruption: on political, judicial, police and customs institutions. The corruption of these four institutions provides the backbone which, on the one hand, facilitates organised criminal activities, and on the other hand gives access to corrupting all other public spheres.
