Bulgarian Prosecution has initiated preliminary legal proceedings against Bulgartabac officials suspected of large-scale embezzlement, Sofia’s deputy prosecutor Roman Vasilev said, quoted by the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA).

Vasilev spent more than two hours in the office building of Bulgaria’s tobacco producer. The raid of Bulgartabac’s office, which started about 17:00h, was made by economic police officials and anti-mafia special forces from the Chief Directorate for Combating Organized Crime.

Besides documents, which Bulgartabac handed over voluntarily, the police also took away other documentation, related to the initiated proceedings. No arrests have been made so far. Bulgartabac fully cooperated the prosecutors and the police.

The raid has nothing to do with the scandal between the head of the National Investigation Service Angel Alexandrov and Bulgaria’ s ministry of economy and energy Rumen Ovcharov; it is separate from the case, the prosecution pointed out. Today’s raid is one of the numerous checks of holding, Bulgartabac’s CEO Hristo Lachev said.

Representatives of the prosecution have taken Bulgartabac documents for financial verification, Lachev said. He said there were four representatives of the prosecution in the holding’s building who are gathering financial information about the company’s activity in 2006.