Bulgarian Posts moves to the highest level of security control, Code Red, transport, IT and Communications Minister Aleksandar Tsvetkov said here Friday.

All postal packages will be man- and machine-checked (by a scanner).

Minister Tsvetkov visited the postal sorting centre in Sofia to inspect the security measures set in place after the increased incidence of postal bomb threats.

He confirmed that a postal office in the capital city reported receiving a suspicious package addressed to the Israeli Embassy.

The Interior Ministry told BTA that the package was checked and no explosive device was found.

The Communications Minister said that Red Code was activated after this incident, among other reasons. The same level of control is required of private postal operators.

Earlier this month a package with a bomb in it was dismantled in the Bulgarian Embassy in Athens. It was among a total of five postal packages with exposives addressed to embassies (Switzerland, Russia, Chile and Germany) and intercepted by the Greek police.

In the past four months x-ray checks intercepted 41 packages with various weapons, including a grenade, sid Todor Bobev, head of the Security Directorate of Bulgarian Posts.

Tenyo Tenev of the Vrazhdebna postal sorting centre said that they have come across packages with drugs, mostly amphetamins.

Source: BTA