Bulgaria will sell part of the Maybach tanks, now buried on its border with Turkey would be sold, depending of the condition they are in, Defence Minister Vesselin Bliznakov said on February 12 2008, as quoted by Focus news agency.

Last week, the Bulgarian army began digging up the tanks, left over from World War 2, which served as firing points at the Bulgarian-Turkish border during the Cold War.

The fate of the tanks attracted public attention in December 2007, when the military counter-intelligence caught two German citizens and a Bulgarian soldier red-handed. The gang, who had already stolen one Maybach tank, was trying to steal a second one.

In mid-January 2008, police arrested three men for selling parts of the turret of an unknown tank for scrap metal. The theft of a third tank was revealed at end-January 2008. The turret had been stolen between August 2007, when the tank was last examined, and January 2008.

The WW2 Maybach tanks are highly valued by collectors.