Controversial businessman Plamen Galev was detained by the police for 72 hours, Interior Ministry sources confirmed to Bulgarian-language Dnevnik daily on December 5 2008. Galev, commonly referred by Bulgarian media as one of the "Galevi brothers", was detained shortly after he was declared as "wanted" by the police for having assaulted a journalist from his home town of Doupnitsa in southwestern Bulgaria.

On December 5 2008, the Interior Ministry published a statement saying that it was "searching for Plamen Galev and Krassimir Okov for having committed a severe criminal offence - "pressuring a journalist".

Hours later, Bulgarian-language media said that Galev had been detained for the legally-allowed period of 72 hours. Speculations in the media said that the journalist in question was Lidia Popova, the Doupnitsa correspondent of Bulgarian-language Strouma daily, based in Blagoevgrad. Popova had filed a court claim against one of Galev's bodyguards Georgi Gradevski, who had allegedly beaten her son at a night club. Allegedly, Galev had tried to convince Popova to withdrow her claim against Gradevski.

The Interior Ministry said that Gradevski has already been detained, but said only that he had committed a brutal and cynical crime without saying what in particular.
 
According to Angel Hristov, Galev's business partner, the latter had voluntarily went to the police after learning the news about his upcoming arrest. Hristov and Galev are commonly referred by the media as the Galevi brother for their close relationship, even though they are not related.

This is the second time Galev had voluntarily appeared before the polcie in  the past two months. On October 15, one of the most large-scale operations of interior Ministry was launched in Doupnitsa. The ministry said that the operations was to "gather additional evidence relating to financial and tax crimes".

The ministry did not reveal the target of all these special efforts or what had triggered this level of co-operation among Bulgaria's crime-busting organisations, but said that people with initials PG and AH were supposed to appear for questioning, but had gone missing. 

Hours after the operation, the Interior Ministry said that the Galevi brothers were summoned for questioning but went missing. Galev was quoted by private broadcaster bTV as saying that they had never been summoned by the police and that was why they decided to appear personally at the National Investigative Service (NIS). They were simply questioned and set free.

A day later, they appeared appeared on private television station Nova Televiziya to reveal a police statement that nothing incriminating had been found during the search of their houses in Doupnitsa.

The statement, according to NIS, was classified information, hence the Galevi brothers will have to answer for their actions. Continuing its crime-fighting efforts, the NIS asked for the details of all Nova Televiziya journalists who had worked on the TV show featuring the Galevi brothers.