Bulgaria’s budget is incurring around 120 million leva in losses from illegal sale of alcohol every year, former Bulgarian deputy finance minister Georgi Kadiev told private broadcaster bTV on April 10.

The statement comes a day after Customs Agency head Assen Assenov told the parliamentary budget committee that illegal vendors were mainly small distilleries that used counterfeit excise stamps.

The practice was not restricted to the small producers, Kadiev said, claiming that even some of the biggest rakiya (traditional brandy) brands in the country - Peshterska, Karnobat and Turgovishte - were sometimes found to be sporting counterfeit excise duties.

Kadiev dismissed the allegations of former customs chief Emil Dimitrov - Revizoro that the underground alcohol boss nicknamed Debeliya (The fat one) was in fact Assenov himself.

The core of the problem with the counterfeit excise stamps lay with the Interior Ministry, the former deputy minister said, although he did not elaborate on what exactly the ministry was doing wrong.

In mid-March, the deputy head of the Interior Ministry chief directorate for combating organised crime, Ivan Ivanov, was arrested on charges of leaking confidential information about ongoing investigations. Media speculation linked Ivanov to Vinprom Peshtera, one of the top three alcohol producers in the country.

Kadiev is now a municipal councillor in Sofia, having left the office of deputy finance minister over policymaking disagreements with Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski.