Every kidnapping in Bulgaria spawns innuendo about the victim, that somehow the episode is revenge for some other deed in the underworld.
This is to forget that in at least one known case – self-preserving discretion may have kept others from the public eye – the victim and his family had no connection at all with organised crime.

Every high-profile kidnapping in Bulgaria in recent times has ended as it began, with speculation and without a trial.

This is to forget, although no one should, that the problem has been with Bulgaria for a long time, since the days of post-communist transition, and has gained the country some unfortunate, even exaggerated, coverage in foreign media.

Most extraordinarily, the Prime Minister suggests that there should be a special law against kidnapping, an idea that has a certain familiarity about it. It boggles the mind that the authorities appear to allow the problem to slip their minds as soon as each episode ends, however it ends.

This is to forget that kidnapping is not just a matter of extorting money from the families of victims who supposedly have the capacity to pay, but is also frequently referred to in reports about people trafficking, especially of women and children for enforced sex work.

It is bad enough that time has been allowed to pass without an adequate legislative response, to say nothing of an adequate response by law enforcement; matters are made worse by depriving the state, should it have the will to do so, of a weapon against people trafficking, a problem not only for this country, but also the region and the world as a whole.

Most extraordinary of all, spokespeople for law enforcement, in discussing the most recent kidnapping to get prominent media coverage, said that the crime was probably the work of the same people who had committed other such abductions.
Which leaves only the very simple question: If there is crime intelligence to suggest that the same people are behind the abductions, why have there been no arrests?