After police raided Bulgartabac’s offices on Wednesday, prosecutors launched pre-trial proceedings against officials from Bulgaria's tobacco monopoly, Bulgartabac, on charges of large-scale embezzlement.

Events escalated further on Thursday when representatives for the police and the prosecutor’s office stormed three more companies which had been contracted by Bulgartabac for services, which were not immediately clear, reported Novinite.
Also on Thursday, Sofia Prosecutor Nikolay Kokinov hinted that rough estimates show embezzlement at the company "may have netted millions of levs". Kokinov declined to specify how the company has been siphoned off. "I would not comment whether the draining was done only through contracts with advertising companies or not. I would only say that during the checks that we have been conducting for more than a few weeks, we came across some shocking things," Kokinov told the state-owned radio.
In his words, the raid was triggered by a tip-off received on Tuesday, saying certain people are likely to hide or manipulate important documents from company files. The prosecutors' check into the alleged misconduct was launched over six weeks ago, shortly after the energy and economy minister, Rumen Ovcharvo, ordered an internal audit. Earlier this month, Bulgartabac’s CEO, Hristo Lachev, was implicated in the large-scale corruption scandal that led to the suspension of Ovcharov and the head of the investigation service, Anguel Alexandrov. Lachev accused Alexandrov of blackmailing him for BGN 150,000 a month for "private purposes".
Law enforcement officials arrived shortly before the end of the day on Wednesday at Bulgartabac's headquarters in downtown Sofia. Contracts signed by Lachev with advertising companies, cigarette distributors and non-profitable organisations involving Bulgartabac, were seized during the raid according to Novinite. Lachev commented that he finds nothing extraordinary about the unexpected visit and assured the holding's administration is fully cooperating by handing over the required documents to the police.