Bulgaria fears dirty money streaming in as foreign investment

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

SOFIA (AFP) — As EU newcomer Bulgaria aims to attract ever larger flows of foreign investment, authorities and analysts have raised fears that part of the money streaming into the country may have been laundered.

"A growing number of investigations come to a dead end as we find that money that we had good reason to consider dirty, or resulting from criminal activity, has been transferred through foreign banks and returned to Bulgaria as 'fresh' investment," said national investigation service chief Boyko Naydenov.

"You just have to look at the posh cars on the streets of Sofia, which exceed the number of luxury vehicles in any other European capital ... or the construction boom in our Black Sea resorts," he told a conference Thursday in Sofia.

Bulgaria...