Prosecutors were expected to ask a court in Sofia to remand in custody without bail an alleged organised crime gang suspected to trying to transfer a property fraudulently.
 
The property, in San Stefano Street in the centre of the city, is said to be worth millions of leva. It is owned by Agrohold, a company owned by Vassil Zlatev, father of businessman Valentin Zlatev.
 
The Interior Ministry said that the group of seven people arrested earlier this week had tried to use fake identity documents and other documents to secure power of attorney and transfer the property illegally.
 
The story took a new twist when media reports that a document crucial to the illicit transaction had been validated by a deputy notary linked to Iskra Fidosova, an MP for Bulgaria’s ruling GERB and a member of Parliament’s legal committee.
 
Fidosova told journalists on August 27 2009 that there was no way to access state computer systems to validate the authenticity of an identity card, making it possible for would-be fraudsters to mislead notaries, especially if the fake card was skillfully done.
 
Bulgarian National Television (BNT) said that police had confirmed that no notary was a suspect in the case.
 
However, media reports identified one of the suspects in the case as a law, although the lawyer has no links to Fidosova.
 
Searches by police and investigators at the home and offices of the suspects turned up fake documents linked to the attempted illegal transaction.
 
Agrohold said that they had no information on how the documents had been endorsed, and who had done so, BNT said.
 
Agrohold bought the house some years ago and had been in the process of working on restoring it.
 
The group was expected to appear in court in Sofia on August 28 2009, when prosecutors were expected to ask that the lawyer and her accomplices be denied bail and held in continued detention.