Poisonous Vodka “Mont Blanc” Importer Has Organised an Extortion Gang

Vassil Mihaylov threatens clients with an illegal gun

Smuggler Vassil Mihaylov, whose counterfeit Mont Blanc vodka sent hundreds of high school seniors to the emergency room in the midst of the ball, has been running a blackmail gang along with four other criminals. A reader of ours has come in person to our office to tell us about the brake he and his family have been up to. Alongside his own illegal businesses Mihaylov has a list full of people who are connected to the criminal world one way or another. A fact that makes them vulnerable.

They are used to choosing victims with a clear criminal record, a small and often bankrupt business and no solid connections. Mihaylov aims at small shops, pubs or family hotels owners. He sells these people fake alcohol or smuggled cigarettes. Low quality goods are being mixed with quality ones hence victims do not find out the fraud and sell the goods to their regular clients.

Vassil Mihaylov is well aware of the info which shop owner would be given smuggled cigarettes and in just a couple of hours appears in the shop. Sometimes he pretends to be an investigating officer and other times a distributor of Mont Blanc vodka. The latter is not a big lie, especially since he has been driving around Sofia in a branded Ford Focus.

The criminal persona easily comes under owners’ skin and starts to explain them that if they say even a single word to the cops the latter would close the business. But if the poor man could spend a thousand a week, he would close his eyes. Frightened, the merchants rummages in the cash register, hoping to get away. But after 3 days, Mihaylov reappears to raise the stakes, because “things are very problematic.” Those who refuse to report are threatened with the police, SANS, the prosecutor’s office, and the most bony nuts are directly told that in the evening his people would “fix their bones” to edify other villains.

This is exactly the case with our informant. He runs a small hotel in the outskirts of Sofia and admits that he may have tried some counterfeit pallets in addition to branded vodkas, but he has good invoices from regular distributors, i.e. he would not be responsible for one inspection to get away with a small fine. That is why he refused to pay Mihaylov and rudely showed him the door. Text messages with photos of his children leaving school followed, a photo of his mother’s car was sent to him, and finally Vassil himself called from a hidden number to warn him that life was short. A similar fate befell the owner of a tavern in Lyulin, but the woman was an old innkeeper with solid connections in the criminal world and quickly explained to Vasil Mihailov that there were more terrible people than him. Humiliated, the gangster pulled out a gun and shouted that he was going to kill all the customers in the club.

The gun is for sure a 100% illegal because Vasko does not own a license for it. There are charges of kidnapping, beating and robbery in his thick criminal record as early as 1996, and 10 years later he was summoned on suspicion of extortion. Apparently, he has now returned to the old craft and the police is not doing anything about it.