Four more Bulgarian companies and the names of two Bulgarian women jump out of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office’s Moby Dick operation against a €390 million VAT draining scheme, at the top of which is the Neapolitan Camorra mafia. The scheme is called by the European prosecutors “VAT Carousel Fraud” (VAT Carousel Fraud). Става дума за фиктивна търговия между реални фирми и “missing traders” who participate as resellers of the goods.
The large-scale international network was broken up two weeks ago, with Laura Kövesi’s office announcing the 195 persons investigated, 160 house searches, 129 frozen bank accounts, 192 seized properties, 44 luxury properties confiscated in Italy alone, 43 arrests and seven European arrest warrants, including in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. Two people are named as organizers: Rodolphe Baleara and Paolo Flavinia.
BIRD has already revealed the main suspect in Bulgaria – Maya Metodieva, who is listed as a contact of the Balearic and Flavinia Islands for Bulgaria. The investigation of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office cites the company “Solutions IT” EOOD, of which Metodieva is the sole owner and manager. The company has managed to make a turnover of BGN 123 million in several years with two employees. Maya Metodieva buys expensive properties in the center of Sofia and in Rome. However, there is no information about her detention, and a person with her initials has not been requested by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office for 72 hours, according to a check in the Single e-Justice Portal.
Our Italian colleagues provided more data on Bulgarian individuals and companies involved in the scheme and mentioned in the Moby Dick investigation. Vanya Trendafilova Tosheva and Marinela Ivanova Stoyanova appear as managers of Italian companies – “missing traders“. There are also four other Bulgarian companies involved in the scheme. These are “Aliot Group”, “Bullcan Group”, “Tekmuve Global Trading” and “Electric and Electronics Trade”. They are owned by foreign citizens – Italians, Slovaks and Swedes.
“Italians” Vanya and Marinela
From 2017 to 2021, Vanya Tosheva was the manager of the Italian company “ECO PUNKT S.r.l.). От 01.07.2021 до 27.02.2023 когато е заличена по заповед на италианските данъчни власти, представител е италианеца Луиджи Луканто (Luigi Lucanto). “Еко Пункт” успява да направи милиони евро обороти и също се оказва “ missing trader” from the scheme.
At the beginning of the millennium, born in Dimitrovgrad in 1970, Vanya Trendafilova Ivanova – Tosheva made a career as a model and shines on the cover of Playboy magazine for October 2024. She is presented as the “Italian” Vanya, photographed on a Bulgarian yacht.
As a businesswoman, she has participations in several Bulgarian companies: “City Queen” EOOD and “Vanyusha IG” EOOD, in which she is the sole owner and manager, and “DVI Trade” EOOD, in which she was a partner until February 2022.
Tosheva is also known in the media as the ex-wife of the late newspaperman Tosho Toshev /Yavnochnik Bor of the State Security/. Their marriage dates back to 2007, and the two got married at Georgi Gergov’s Palace Hotel in the Sunny Day resort. The ceremony took place “amidst the sound of the sea, huge baskets of white and pink orchids and to the sounds of the song “Parla pew piano” (the love theme from “The Godfather”),” the newspaper “Trud” informed at the time. Vanya Tosheva became the fifth wife of the newspaperman, keeping his name and after their divorce, which happened semi-secretly in 2011, BIRD contacted Vanya Tosheva and asked how she ended up at the head of the Italian company “Eco Point” and whether she knew the Balearics and Flavinia. She replied that she did not know them and did not know anything about the scheme with the “missing trader”. “I knew a lady, a girl – Polina, a Russian woman, with whom we worked in connection with “Fashion and Advertising”. She introduced me to a gentleman, Andrea, who suggested that we do something so that we could actually have a stay in Italy. Apparently I have become a victim of something that no one has ever known me about. It seems that then I trusted and they registered the company with my name. I don’t know anything about the activity, nor have I set foot in the office. I can’t help with anything,” she said. This is quite possible, since in such schemes the identity of “straw men” who have no control over the operations of the company is often used. Vanya Tosheva’s property account does not show that she has enriched herself from her business activities, at least not in Bulgaria. She owns an apartment in Sofia, purchased back in 2002 and in 2016-2018 she sold hereditary fields of which she was a co-owner with relatives in the village of Yabalkovo near Dimitrovgrad. This is probably the case with Marinela Stoyanova
, born in 1982, who was a representative of the “missing trader” 4F Mobility S.r.l.s. And this company has made millions of euros in turnover and was deleted in October 2021 by the Italian tax authorities. Stoyanova has no properties and operating companies in Bulgaria. In the past, it was registered as a sole proprietorship. BIRD was unable to find a phone number or other contact to contact Stoyanova.
Bulgarian companies – Maya, three Italians and a Swede
A total of five are Bulgarian legal entities suspected as participants in the scheme for draining VAT for 390 million euros, at the top of which is the Neapolitan mafia Camorra. One of them is Maya Metodieva’s Solutions IT LTD, which we reported on in our previous post on the topic. Another is indebted to the Bulgarian treasury. BIRD also reviews the annual financial statements of companies. “Electric & Electronics Trade
” Ltd. was registered on 23.07.2014 in Sofia, initially as “International Electric Group”. On 20.06.2017 the company was renamed and moved to an address in Vratsa. The sole owner and manager is Mauro di Capa (Mauro Di Capua), an Italian national. The latest submitted report shows over BGN 1.5 million. revenues for 2017 and BGN 93 thousand. for 2016. After 2018, no reports have been submitted. The company had VAT registration from 20.10.2014 to 28.02.2019 ( deregistration) and has accumulated over BGN 5.5 million. Obligations to the NRA. She has been included in the lists of large debtors since October 2020 and has been wanted through the NRA’s public bulletin with messages under Art. 32 of the TSSPC.
“Aliot Group“” Ltd. was registered on 14.10.2019 in Sofia. The sole owner and manager is the Italian citizen Gian Luca Bidzarri (Gian Luca Bizzarri). The company reported revenues of: 69.6 mln. Lv. for 2023; 12.4 mln. for 2022; 2.8 million. for 2021; 1.8 million. for 2020. As of 02.12.2019, Aliot Group is registered for VAT and has no liabilities. Jan Bidzari is associated with a common 12 companies in Bulgaria. Another Bulgarian company is Bulkan Group
” EOOD, registered on 19.11.2020 in Blagoevgrad. More recently, on 11.11.2024, it has become the property of the Italian Massimo Milano, through another of his Blagoevgrad companies “Oblivius““, registered on 15.07.2024. He is a manager in both companies and is associated with a common 11 Bulgarian companies. “Буллкан Груп” отчита приходи от: 6,4 млн. лв. за 2023; 1,9 млн.за 2022; 1,3 млн. за 2021 и от 08.12.2020 е регистрирана по ДДС и няма задължения. “Буллкан Груп” често сменя собствениците си: до 11.11.2024 е собственост на Kiril Georgiev; until 19.01.2024 it is owned by Carol Hansen, a citizen of Slovakia; until 24.05.2023 it is owned by another company of Massimo Milano; and the first owner until 04.02.2021 is Velichka Petrunova. And finally, Tekmuve Global Trading
” Ltd. was registered on 15.03.2022 in Sofia. The sole owner and manager is Tamer Kafafi (Tamer Kafafi), a Swedish citizen. On 04.052023, a lawyer authorized by Kafafi alerted the Registry Agency (entered in the Commercial Register) that a third unscrupulous person was trying to appropriate the company with false documents. In the only submitted financial statement, the revenues for 2022 are 17.4 million. Lv. The company had VAT registration from 19.03.2022 to 20.07.2024 ( Deregistration) and has been searched repeatedly (8 messages) through the NRA’s public bulletin. The last announcement from 14.11.2024 is for the delivery of audit report, and another of the previous ones is an audit order. Фирмата не е в списъците с длъжници, но това може скоро да се промени.
Expensive properties in Rome and Prague
As reported by the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, the investigation led to the seizure of 192 properties in several European countries. Investigative journalists have so far obtained information about a total of 8 properties in Sofia, Rome and Prague. The Bulgarian “contribution” is an apartment in the center of Sofia and a house in the village of German of Maya Metodieva and her husband, as well as two apartments in Italy, in the center of Rome, which are associated with Maya Metodieva. In addition, colleagues from the Czech investigative center Investigace.cz, who also have access to the documents provided by the Italian colleagues from IRPI, found several expensive properties in Prague. They are owned by one of the bosses of the pyramid – Rodolphe Baleara.
One of the witnesses of the Italian prosecutor’s office describes how in February 2023 he met with Flavinia and Baleara at the Royal Hotel in Prague. He learned that Baleara owned a property right next to the hotel. Czech colleagues found that it was an apartment in the name of the Ballaro company, purchased in April 2022 for 14.7 million crowns (nearly 580,000 euros). But that’s not all. In May 2022, Baleara acquired a two-storey house for 47 million kroner (about 1,800,000 euros). There is also information about a third property – an apartment in Prague for 11 million crowns /nearly 435,000 euros/
Investigace also specifies the role of the scheme’s managers. The Italian Flavinia maintained ties with supply firms, and Baleara, a 45-year-old Belgian of Sicilian origin, controlled the companies at the heart of the fraud. Prague is one of the cities where the swindlers organized meetings.
The relationship with the Camorra
Italy is the central country in the scheme, where many brokerage firms operate, reselling the goods abroad. According to Italian investigators, the connection with the Camorra runs through the Balearic Mountains and his main accomplice is Marco Mezzatesta. Mezzatesta runs Connex Italy Srl, based in Rome, and maintains contacts with several mafia clans of the Neapolitan Camorra.
Another contact to the underworld is Antonio “Tony” Lo Manto, whom the Italian media describe as a matchmaker and conciliator in the interests of the Neapolitan mafia. “He acted as a bridge between the international and national levels of the Neapolitan supply chain, led by members of the Camorra based in Naples and Rome,” Sicilian media wrote about him.
Mezzatesta and La Manto were also arrested in the course of Operation Moby Dick, along with Giovanni Nuvolta, a member of the Nuvoletta clan, which was part of the Camorra.
“Moby Dick shows that there are no two separate criminal worlds. On the one hand, the world of really bad and dangerous criminals who smuggle drugs and traffick human beings, and on the other hand, the world of white-collar criminals who “only” corrupt and launder money,” European High Prosecutor Laura Kovesi commented on the fraud case.
Lead photo: Vanya Tosheva (left, personal profile photo), the poster from the announcement of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office about Operation Moby Dick.
От Враца до Камората: Българската следа в операция “Моби Дик” на Европрокуратурата
Материалът More Bulgarian companies in the “Moby Dick” scheme of the Camorra. And a Playboy model е публикуван за пръв път на BIRD.
