One of Bulgaria’s most high profile court cases finally concluded on December 1 with two sentences, one of five years’ imprisonment and the other, a three-year suspended jail term.

The case pertained to Petar Petrov, often referred to by Bulgarian media as one of "the Amigos", and related to wide scale money laundering and customs fraud. One of the defendants in the case, Ivan "The Doctor" Todorov, was murdered in his vehicle in broad daylight in Sofia in 2006. The third defendant was Tsveta Manavska.

All three were found guilty of laundering 99 million leva from cigarette smuggling. Of the three Petrov was sentenced to five years in jail while Manavska received a three-year suspended sentence. Only Petrov was in court because Todorov was dead and Manavska had reportedly escaped to South Africa with some of the proceeds, according to prosecutors. Two other defendants, the brothers Doichin and Dimitar Miryanovi, were acquitted.

The case had been on the back burner of the Bulgarian judicial system for four-and-a-half years, beset by frequent delays as witnesses suddenly fell ill or the defence sought more time to gather new evidence. Todorov was always the subject of most attention. Police described him as the highest profile smuggler in Bulgaria with a network spreading to courtiers in Macedonia and the UK. He was also involved in one of the biggest political scandals surrounding the 2001 cabinet of former prime minister Simeon Saxe-Coburg, one that still reverberates today.

In 1996, Todorov started a very profitable company importing and exporting cigarettes. He obviously did well, because a year later he presented customs authorities with documents from Swiss banks showing that his account held $2 million, guaranteeing the transit of his goods through Bulgaria. According to the court’s December 1 2009 ruling, Todorov and Petrov had organised a smuggling scheme spreading to almost every Balkan country, as well as Ukraine, Georgia and Armenia.

At the centre of the scheme was Petrov’s company Amigos 3 that employed Manavska. Todorov’s and Petrov’s preferred trade partners were companies from Serbia, Macedonia and Kosovo. Todorov claimed in several interviews at the time that his activity in the Balkans was completely legal. However, he was suspected of customs fraud, in particular exporting cigarettes to western Europe and the UK.

Up until 2003, everything appeared to be going well for Todorov. That year, however, a bomb exploded in his car in Tsarigradsko Chausse Boulevard. Todorov survived the attack but his relatively low profile evaporated after police found incriminating photographs in his blown-up Mercedes. These purportedly showed Todorov, then-finance minister Milen Velchev and then-transport minister Plamen Petrov playing cards together on a yacht in Monaco.

Police also reportedly found a file in the car containing secret information about an investigation launched against Todorov by Bulgarian authorities. The two ministers denied knowing Todorov but the question hung in the air. Apparently, reacting to the strength of public feeling, police filed multiple charges against Todorov, ranging from smuggling to money laundering. In February 2006, Todorov, whose confident court appearances were widely covered by the media, was shot dead by a still unidentified assassin while driving his SUV in Sofia’s Lozenets borough. This terminated all legal proceedings against him.